Held. Helped. Healed.

A decade ago (or thereabouts) some brothers met me at the altar of the church I once pastored and prayed for a healing in my life. A saint who pastored me was present on that Sunday morning and suddenly had a ‘word’ he felt compelled to share:

Scott, when your healing comes it won’t be based on your faith but through the faith of others.”

Fast-forward to last month, roughly a decade later.

I was in the throes of one of my most mystifying physical trials in a long history of afflictions, mostly known and often avoidable, the first clues of which manifested the week of Christmas. Starting with sudden – I’ll take care not to overshare here – gastric discomfort then sharp, stabbing pains down my left side, I reckoned I might be joining the ranks of gluten and/or dairy allergy unfortunates and thusly changed my diet posthaste.

Alas, there was near-immediate relief. For a week.

It’s return came with medieval unkindness; there was non-stop nausea, intestinal, ah, belligerence and that infernal left-side pain. After a date night with my beloved I went straight home and to bed. For the next two months I was homebound, bed-ridden and pathetically infirm. Only Sandy and I will ever know the hopeless existence that commenced and emanated from that bedroom. I couldn’t lift a cup to my lips the pain was so great. I could barely tolerate food. Dry-heaving became my frienemy throughout the ordeal. Turn me to change the bed’s draw sheets? Forget it. I couldn’t. Just…couldn’t.

Sandy had to wait on me, hand and foot, week after arduous week, for which she NEVER, EVER complained. 

 Let’s hear it for the Sange:

  

 Yepsiree…no doubt… 

 Here’s what you might be thinking (unless you’re still distracted by Ryan Gosling in a tux, ladies):

Boy, Scott, I’ll bet your bedroom was a holy of holies and your bed the mercy seat whereupon you lay suspended between the cherubim, earth and glory. Certainly you floated above us all in rarefied air.

It’d sure be cool to spin my story that way, let me tell you, but most days I felt like I was this guy:

 

 

 Day turned into night, night labored till dawn, day after day, the same drab and hopeless scene stretched before me, leaving my soul rasping and gasping and bereft. If I lay utterly still the hours were tolerable but woe was me if I had to shift in bed even a few inches. The doctors were befuddled. There were CT scans, ultrasounds, upper endoscopies, colonoscopies, blood and stool tests. Each revealed nothing except mounting bills. Hope hardened and Heaven seemed light years removed. Worship eluded me. I wasn’t mad at God – far, far from it! I don’t believe I even once doubted His goodness. What I did doubt was healing, so began processing what life might look like as a bedridden saint. Frankly, I’d rather I just died.

So, no, no holy place and no ascending incense. I did sense some winged creatures hovering most days, but more in line with:

 

 

 So, yeah, you get the idea. 

 
However… 

 Ministering priests began to tromp around on the temple grounds one day in very late February. When Hope seemed bleakest, my priests began stoking the fires, laying the coals of infused incense, offering the breads on the altar, running the oil to the lamp stand, and presented their prayers befor the Lord. Yes, many intercessions had been offered up for me but in one concentrated 24-hr period it was exponential. Texts, voice mails, notes, tweets, direct messages – whatever mediums were available – were laid as my mercy seat upon which the Christ of Comfort took His seat for me, and from which His healing power flowed to my bed of affliction. 

 There’s a miracle story that Dr. Luke weaves into his gospel tapestry that fits well here.

Seems there was a paralyzed man who needed Jesus’ redemptive touch. He obviously had friends who cared about him for we find their faith in its creative zenith as they Mapquested™ Simon Peter’s address and four-man lifted and carried their disabled friend to his front door in the village of Capernaum. They’d heard Jesus was holding court and believed their friend had a shot if they could only get him near to the Healing Man. 

 Big obstacle. The house was crowded. Even the overflow rooms were packed. What to do, what to do? 

They eyed an outer staircase that led to the roof.

Why not, they thought.

Removing tiles, whether thatch or true tiles, they created an opening just wide enough to lower their buddy to a sliver of space at the feet of the Son of Man. I’m sure Jesus stopped in mid-sermon when He heard the overhead commotion and looked up. I’ll bet a smile widened on His face as the Father revealed His plan to Him in that moment. 

 “You will heal this man, spirit, soul and body, My Son,” He heard. 

 
Yay! And it’s the Sabbath, and there’s an entourage of Pharisees sitting here! Even better! 

 
(I’m sure Jesus was truly jazzed, because, well, Pharisees…) 

 Luke is careful to report that Jesus was moved by the faith of this pathetic man’s friends. Just so, I only had a spittle cup’s worth of hope for my own healing, but God blessed me with an army of ministering priests who showed up together and carried me to the mercy-seat of Jesus, believing as one that there was Gospel Hope for me. 

 Within 24 hours of this prayer barrage, I had no more debilitating pain. 

 I could turn myself. 

 I could bathe myself. 

 I could dress myself. 

 No doctors, no medicine, no therapy. 

This miracle is solely attributable to Jehovah-Rapha, my Healer.

A friend recently asked me about that decade-ago exchange, about my healing coming based on the faith of others not my own. She asked if I thought this was that. I don’t know, quite honestly. If it isn’t, it’s enough. More than! Whatever God decides, I’m at peace with it. But somehow I believe an even greater healing is coming. Henceforth, I’m waiting for some friends to call me someday and say:

Scott, how do you feel about rooftops?”

 

Weekly Podcast: A Challenging Word for 2015

image
This week’s episode outlines a scenario for the followers of Jesus in coming days. What will 2015 hold for the Church?

I have a challenging word for us. You’ll need to read Acts 27 and 28 which provides background and scriptural support for where God is taking us.

Today’s broadcast will cover:

  • A Challenge for What’s Coming, and
  • The Objective to Where God Is Taking Us

Let’s talk about A Coming Storm….And An Appointment With Rome

• • • •

Running Time: 26m, 04s

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

God Is Not Finished

IMG_0883.JPG
If you’ve managed to string together some years of living, you can’t deny the times you’ve stood at a crucial crossroad and asked, “How will I get through this?”

And yet, here you are.

There’ve been some Goliaths here and there, some Waterloos, a Gethsemane or two, and perhaps even a dark night of the soul to spice things up. But you made it. You’re here and in one piece. Yes, you’ve accumulated your share of scars, a wine cellar of bottled tears, and there might even be a hint of PTSD, but the fact remains, you came through. It wasn’t bootstraps or fine breeding that got you through, either. It was God.

I’ll tie a bow on this four-part “God Is Not…” series with this final faith-building installment. In preparation for whatever Everests or Hades that loom before us in 2015, whatever crises of belief to assay our faith, God has already won the day and we are citizens of His unshakable Kingdom.

So what have we learned about God-in-crisis? What is the climate in the throne room when the fury of hell is unleashed? What can we expect from Him as the days grow more uncertain, as frightening darkness encroaches, as alarms are sounding, when even the experts are turning to gloom-and-doom forecasts?

We’ve learned that:

  • God Is not nervous in the least

    • The Psalmist says He even “laughs” in the face of the would-be oppressors – but smiles on His own, because

  • God is not aloof and uncaring

    • He looks intimately upon us as we toil and strive against the onslaught of waves – and He’s not at a loss…for words. He will stand and shout at the storm “Enough!” and carry us through.

  • And, God is not handicapped

    • All the resources of glory are at His disposal and in full operation to countermand the wickedness of evil’s hate against His own. He is not self-absorbed but “will fight for you.” (Exodus 14:14)

And the word that feeds our soul today is,

  • God Is Not Finished

Paul, the apostle of suffering, said he’d been shipwrecked three times, was once set adrift at sea and, at other times, experienced “dangers at sea” – all in one paragraph (2 Cor 11:25,26). He and the sea didn’t get along too well, it would seem.

Acts 27 gives a harrowing account of one such shipwreck. Luke accurately recounts that Paul was a carefully-guarded prisoner and was loaded onto a cargo ship for an appointment with Caesar in Rome. His case as an insurrectionist against Rome was going to be reviewed by a Roman court with Caesar himself presiding.

It wasn’t the best time to be sailing on the contrary Mediterranean and Paul suggested to the captain they might find a harbor to winter in. The captain considered it but sought other counsel and was told the ship was sturdy to face whatever the sea could throw at it and, besides, weren’t they under some time constraints to deliver their charge? You guessed it. They pushed on – straight into the teeth of a nor’easter.

For two whole weeks they battled and toiled and despaired. They didn’t see the sun for fourteen straight days but fought through night-like conditions 24 hours a day, without food as the all-hands-on-deck situation kept them active and occupied. This was a once-in-a-lifetime storm that terrorized even the most hardened veteran sailors. And there was Paul.

Nearly two weeks of this and Paul was in his quarters one night when he was visited by an Angel who told him,

Don’t fear this storm, Paul. You will not die and none of the other 276 men will die, either. You are destined to speak to Caesar and to Caesar you will go!”

Paul believed God and shared this news with the crew later that night.

“Men,” he said, “God has told me we will not die. Look, you haven’t eaten in two weeks, so eat!”

It was a strange thing to say. The boat was still being lashed by rains and wind and the waves remained mountains of fury against them, but in the midst of it all, as Paul surely had to shout to be heard, there was the promise of deliverance – and the respite of food.

I think we’re in a calm before the storm hits. Indeed it’s coming and it’ll be unlike any past storm we’ve come through before. I believe we’ve foolishly pushed out from Crete instead of listening to the warnings of God, trusting rather in the size and seaworthiness of our vessels. Consequently, there are frightening days ahead – days of peril and dashed hopes. But even in this, God is not absent. His hands are not tied. He will come and save us because we have islands to save and Caesars to stand before and Romes to invade and snakes to shake off our hands – because Acts doesn’t finish with chapter 27 but moves seamlessly into chapter 28.

But the cost will be high.

Remember, it is not the storm – or the size of it – that dictates the outcome. That’s the Lord’s call. Some of us will have to swim for our lives, some will cling to planks and others will have to fight for mere scraps (Acts 27:44) – but God has spoken, He is not finished, and we will make it to shore.

Amen.

• • • •

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:

Under the shadow of thy throne,
thy saints have dwelt secure;
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received her frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone;
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all its sons away;
they fly, forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guide while troubles last,
and our eternal home!

- Isaac Watts