Beyond Healing

Hebrews 12:2
"looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Through the years, my theology on faith and healing has been severely challenged by my experiences. I desire to have a theology that is both consistent with scripture yet explains my experiences. Like many Christians, I have been immersed in teachings of faith, healing, and God's love that claim that healing is for today, that God wants to heal us, and we can be healed by faith. Yet my experiences of losing three children, of praying for people to be healed and not seeing them healed in spite of building my faith through reading the word and spending time with God, etc. is that not many people have been healed, including those closest to me and the ones that were the most important. On the other hand, I witnessed a miraculous healing many years ago when I saw a leg that had been damaged in a car wreck grow out. I also saw my oldest son healed of Giardia when he was a few months old.

I long for more healing to happen. I desire to see hospitals emptied, that cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s be found. As part of my longing, I have been seeking God to understand what is going on with the lack of healing.

Yesterday I visited two children in the hospital. One is a two year old that was revived from drowning and has lost significant brain function. His parents are overwhelmed with guilt and blame themselves. The other was a six year old that was born with cerebral palsy and had recently endured another 12 hour surgery in an attempt to increase function in his legs. In addition to that challenge, his older brother, age 23, was killed in a car accident 3 weeks ago. The family is grieving that loss on top of this.

It was heartbreaking to be with the two families as they struggled through their challenges. Both families had deep faith which was being severely tested. I want an answer for them that brings comfort and hope.

From my studies, personal prayer time, and understanding of scriptures, I have concluded:

1. It is not that God can't heal; He is the creator of the universe and can do anything.

2. It is not that God doesn't want to heal. He is our heavenly father and He wants the best for us. His heart hurts when we suffer just like my heart hurts when my sons suffer.

3. It is not a lack of faith on our part. I have seen God move many times in spite of our faith. He does want us to walk in faith, but if healing depends on what we bring to the table, we can fall into a performance based gospel devoid of grace.

What does that leave me then with as an explanation for the lack of healing?

Once in a time of prayer, I felt like the Holy Spirit said "I would explain it to you but you wouldn't understand" as I referenced in an earlier posting. I think the answer to the lack of healing may be along the same lines.

I believe in cases where we are walking in faith, where we have prayed and believed and the manifestation of healing has not come, God has something better in mind for us. I know that can be hard to imagine for the couple whose son was drowned and revived and now faces incredible difficulties or for the family in the hospital who just lost another son. It has certainly been hard for me to accept as I walked through the crushing loss of our children.

The implication of this position is that suffering can be for our benefit. I hate this suggestion because I hate suffering. I get frustrated when I think that something painful, especially for my children, that seems to have no good reason, does have a reason that I don't understand. And I REALLY don't want this to become an excuse to not believe God for healing or to not ask for it. We are commanded to keep on asking and to keep on believing. We can't afford to get lazy or give up. There is too much at stake.

But in cases where it doesn't come forth, we can still trust God because He is a just God and will make things right before the story is finished. There is still something "before us" as it was before Jesus.

I believe there are life principles that "everything worth having costs something" and "overcoming resistance builds strength". These principles are true in the physical and spiritual realms and apply as we walk through bad times.

God didn't cause my sons to have a rare brain disease to teach me something or to build my spiritual strength. He is a good God! But He has used those painful experiences of suffering to give me an opportunity to directly serve someone who couldn't take care of themselves (my sons), to bring me through those experiences to show others you can survive them, to build a reward for Debbie and I in heaven based on our faithfulness that He caused us to have. He has caused all things to work together for good, and not just for my good, but for the good of others.

Jesus did not rejoice because of the suffering of the cross set before Him. He rejoiced at what was on the other side. We are not called to rejoice at the loss of our children, or the painful suffering that is common in the world. But we can rejoice in the hope of that which is beyond what we can see now.

So based on the scripture above, I have chosen to trust God, the creator of the universe, my heavenly father that loves me more than I can fathom, that there is a reward on the other side of this suffering. Jesus was able to see it and He is my example.

I will keep asking and keep believing and I will support efforts to end suffering at every level of humanity. This is my charge and my calling, to comfort those with the comfort I have been comforted with. I will continue to fight for healing and trust my loving Father when it doesn’t come.

Marriage Survival in Difficult Times

My pastor recently asked me "How have you and Debbie stayed married through your difficult times?" Here is my response:

Background

Besides the normal difficulty facing today’s marriages, Debbie and I have experienced two types of tragedy that typically destroy marriages: “long, drawn out, painful, fight to the death tragedy where we lost a child in the end” and “sudden, unexpected death of a child”.

We had two severely handicapped children with a rare brain disease that ended the lives of our third and fourth sons, Nathan and David, at the ages of 5 ½ and 6 ½ in 1996 and 1998 after years of fighting for their lives. Then in 2008, our 19 year old son, Matthew, was killed in an accident when his friend was driving drunk.

Challenges to our marriage in difficult times

There are many issues couples face when losing a child that normal marriages don’t encounter. However, pressure, stress, and conflict affect every marriage.

We experienced financial pressure when I was unable to pay bills and when I made bad financial decisions, overwhelming stress when the doctors misdiagnosed the medical problems and the treatments caused our children unnecessary and excruciating pain, long-term stress caused by constant exhaustion from lack of sleep and conflict caused by our own stubbornness and selfishness.

Over the years, the biggest threat to our marriage both then and now for me (Mark) has been my personal selfishness.

My selfishness was manifested in my attitudes of anger and hatefulness when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go. And when things were not going my way, I wanted people to change or my circumstances to change. Many times, God wanted ME to change which was hard to admit and even harder to accomplish.

An example of the conflict created by my selfishness was the fierce arguments over how our children should be raised or cared for. Even with healthy children, parents often disagree over rules, boundaries, discipline, and parenting style. With two severely handicapped children under the care of multiple doctors, we also disagreed about how their care should be administered. Our disagreements raged as heated arguments full of threats, anger, accusations, recriminations and self-destruction.

A different type of stress occurred when Matthew was killed in the accident. Sudden, overwhelming grief from loss is blindingly painful and our natural reaction is to want the pain to go away. And in order to stop the pain, we try to identify the cause of the pain (blame), so we can make sure “that” never happens again.

The most common target for blame is our spouse and God. I also blamed myself for not doing enough as a father to keep him away from friends that were leading him down paths of destruction. Blaming myself caused shame and guilt. Blaming Debbie made me angry at her. Blaming God fractured my relationship with him because I thought I could no longer trust Him.

Eventually, stress, division, and conflict lead to attitudes of hopelessness and despair that things will not change and desperate measures are in order. For me, I lost hope that my circumstances would ever change and I became blinded to the future. When we had Nathan and David, I lost hope that they would ever be healed or be able to take care of themselves. It felt like it would always be “that way”. I believed my children would always be sick, that Debbie and I would always disagree, and that my finances would always be a struggle. After Matthew’s accident, I thought our marriage would always be stuck in blame and that we would always act the way we were acting, out of hurt, pain, and anger.

Hopelessness and despair led me to consider suicide and divorce many times. By God’s tremendous, extreme love, grace and mercy, and through ABSOLUTELY no merit of my own, we have survived and our marriage has survived. By His Holy Spirit, He has given me revelation at key moments that have helped us make it this far. Here is some of what He has shown me.

Strategies for Hope and Healing

Selfishness is overcome by “crucifying” my desires

I can make the choice that “what I want is not as important as what God wants” or “what my wife needs”. And when I lay down my desires by a choice, I submit my will to “death on the cross”. It may be painful, but it will yield eternal, life-giving fruit.

Everything I do motivated by selfishness leads to pain and death. Everything I do motivated by the Holy Spirit will lead to life.

Do NOT make life decisions in times of great crisis.

Somewhere along the way, a wise person gave me this advice. The practical application for me was to make two decisions.

1. Regardless of what is happening, I will not leave Debbie during this time of crisis.


2. I will not make any major life decisions until at least 90 days after the “crisis” is over.

Create a “Grace bubble”

After Matthew’s accident, my counselor, Phyllis Mathis, helped me understand that Debbie and I were deeply wounded emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually by events and that as wounded people, our behavior would flow from our hurt. We would lash out, be angry, be sad, etc. and say and do things that we would not normally do. Elements of our personality would be revealed that were previously unknown and would not represent who we normally were.

Each person processes grief differently and at different rates. Sometimes, a person can get stuck on one part of the process. The process is not linear. In other words, the components may include anger, negotiation, regret, resignation. One day we may experience anger, the next day negotiation, and the next day return to anger.

Her suggestion was to think of Debbie as being in a “spiritual ICU”, intensive care unit. Within the ICU, I could create a “Grace bubble” where Debbie could say or do anything and I would extend her grace, mercy, and forgiveness. I had to extend grace for whatever the day brought. When my wife said something very hurtful, I had to remember that she was hurt and saying things from that place. She may not mean what she is saying today or tomorrow, she will feel differently.

Most importantly, I would recognize my need for grace and give her what I needed.

When we got married, I knew she was not perfect but I loved her anyway. The value of loving her was worth more than the pain caused by our differences.

You have to make the right choice over and over, sometimes many times per day. You only have to make a bad choice once.

I have had to make the choice to stay married many times. In fact, I have had to make that choice every time selfishness took over my thinking or hurt overwhelmed my emotions.

If I had made a choice to divorce or leave, I would have only had to make it once.

Circumstances WILL change

What you are experiencing now will NOT last. It may last years, but it WILL “come to PAST”. The possibilities for change are infinite. Trust God that things will get better!

God wants to speak directly to you about your circumstances.

Press into your relationship with Him with the foundation of knowing that in spite of what we experience, He REALLY LOVES me. His words will bring light, life, and hope.

The Spirit and Power of Elijah

Last Friday, as a group of us were studying Luke 1, I caught something for the first time that I had not seen before. In verse 17, as Gabriel was speaking to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, he said that John would walk in “the Spirit and Power of Elijah, turning the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the disobedient to the wisdom of righteousness” (NIV).

I had never seen the relationship to “the Spirit and Power of Elijah” to “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children” or “turning the disobedient to the wisdom of righteousness”.

In the late 80’s there was an outpouring of the prophetic among the churches in North America. For the last 20 years, the prophetic movement has grown through adversity, correction, and adjustment. Many believers now walk in an awareness of prophecy and are open to giving and receiving direct words of encouragement from one another as words from the Lord. However, as wonderful as these words sometimes are, there is a deeper responsibility that comes with “the Spirit and Power of Elijah”.

Elijah is the prime representation of the prophetic movement in the Old Testament to the nation of Israel. He is referred to in scripture as the example of both an outpouring of the power of God (I Kings 18:20-40) and answered prayer of a faithful man (James 5:17,18). At the mount of transfiguration, Jesus met with Moses, the representation of the Law, and Elijah, the representation of the prophetic. What “the Spirit and Power of Elijah” represents is as relevant today as it ever was.

In the context of Elijah’s story, the nation of Israel had steadily abandoned God’s ways through multiple generations of kings leading up to Ahab (sounds vaguely familiar to what we have witnessed in America over the last couple of generations). However, the responsibility for the subtle drift from righteousness to idolatry that spanned several generations is laid on fathers who maybe out of neglect, distraction, or ignorance inadvertently left their children to be swayed by the influence of the world around them.

As a man who cried out in intercession for his people with great passion, Elijah longed to see them repent.

Malachi 4, a passage also associated with the Spirit and Power of Elijah states that when fathers abandon their responsibility to their children, a curse is released in the earth. I would suggest despair, violence, lawlessness, and disregard for life in the inner city (or anywhere for that matter) where fathers have not fulfilled their role is an example of the curse Malachi warned us about.

I believe it is time for us, as representatives who received the blessings of the prophetic, to mature to the next level. This next level is one where the prophetic gifting along with intercessory prayer results in community responsibility with a calling to fathers and the disobedient.

The practical application of this word, while carrying huge responsibility, is beyond just our natural children. It includes our spiritual children as Paul said, “you have many teachers but not many fathers” (1 Corinthians 4:15 ).

The role of fathering includes: calling and blessing our children into their destiny, representing righteousness to them, setting standards in love and grace, serving them as they pursue their own relationship to our loving heavenly father, praying for them, and much more.

The result of this revelation is that my expectation for the prophetic has changed. I am looking forward to new outpourings of gifts including the miraculous backed by intense intercessory prayer as I lead those with whom I have a fathering role into deeper relationship with Him.

Radio Program

For those who missed it, Debbie and I were guests on a local radio program last Sunday morning sharing our story of losing 3 sons. Our intent in sharing this is to offer hope and encouragement that God can bring you through difficult times. It is now available for listening at the link below. It is about 25 minutes long. Feel free to share.

http://www.missioncriticalis.com/radio-20090823.mp3

Quantum Mechanics and "why"

In college, I took a Physics course called "Quantum Mechanics". It was about the nature of the atom and how it behaved. On the first day of the course, the professor, Dr. Sherry, said "Write down everything I say. For the first 7 weeks, it won't make any sense. In 7 weeks, it will either all come together and you will understand or you won't. Those who understand will make an A on the final and get an A in the class, the rest will fail". The joke on campus was there are only two who understood Quantum Mechanics, Dr. Sherry and God, and God doesn't have office hours. I remember the first several weeks were overwhelmingly confusing, primarily because the language used to describe the subject was foreign to me, and it was based on concepts I had never been exposed to.

One day, when talking with our Father about the "why" in the loss of David, our fourth son, I believe His words to my heart were along the lines of "you don't have the framework of understanding for me to answer your question" or basically, you wouldn't understand if I told you.

Over the last 2 years, I've gotten to see an active volcano in Hawaii, the "caldera" of Yellowstone, and the majesty of Alaska. In all three cases, I was overwhelmed by the size and awesomeness of what was before me. I felt small, insignificant and a bit afraid at the power of what was in front of me and what had caused it to be.

It is no wonder that the God who created Hawaii, Yellowstone, and Alaska, has trouble explaining to me, who can't figure out pretty simple things like how an atom behaves, "why".

Torah Study and Sexual Sin

I love studying the Torah. I recognize this sounds strange to most Christians, but the awesome revelation I've gotten each time of God's amazing love in the Torah has been priceless.

I am not looking for a set of regulations to live my life by. I open my heart to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to say about that passage.

Over the last couple of weekends, the passages have contained the story of Moses and the command to lead an army against the Midianites. The Midianites are the ones who hired Balaam to come speak prophecy against the Nation of Israel and he ended up blessing them (remember Balaam's donkey). When the king of Midian realized that wouldn't work, he enlisted the women of Midian to seduce the leaders of Israel sexually.

Unfortunately, many Israelites succumbed to the temptation of sexual sin. Moses commanded the children of Israel to hang those who had participated in the sexual sin. But the influence of the sin had spread. So much so that at one point, an Israelite leader who had been seduced brought a prostitute to Moses and Aaron and slept with her in front of the entire camp.

Now it was REALLY BAD. A plague begin to spread through the camp. Before it was over, 24,000 people were dead, which is more than were killed in Korah's rebellion. But a young man who was zealous for God ran a spear through the Israelite leader and stopped the plague.

The principle I see here is that sexual sin releases plagues such as STD's and AIDS, generational curses (our children and their children are harmed when we indulge our sinful nature), derails us from our destiny, and hurts everyone around us. Sexual sin, even before marriage, breaks trust and damages the most honored, life giving relationship we can have, our marriage. It hurts us and the ones we love the most in a life scarring way.

So God in His infinite love and mercy, calls us to sexual purity. Not for His benefit, but for ours.

Many years ago, I almost had an affair. Even the "almost" was devastating to my marriage. I was seduced by the lure of the pleasure of sex, but like the town in a Western movie, the seduction was from a false reality, a facade that had no substance or value. It took a long time to rebuild trust in my marriage. My foolishness, lust, and pride lead to something that I can't undo and the remembrance is shameful.

Today, many of our leaders have been seduced into sexual sin and have forfeited their leadership authority and there are those who openly flaunt with pride, their sexual sin. My heart is not to condemn them, but it breaks to know what has been released into their lives, the lives of future generations and into our community.

I have seen glimpses of how much damage sexual sin can do and I rejoice in His infinite mercy and grace to me and my family that we have not felt the righteous judgment against us that was due from my choices. I look back and remember in the light of the truth of the Torah, great grace and mercy has been shown in my life. I see a beautiful expression of the kingdom of God when forgiveness occurs in marriages that He has redeemed from tragedy. I am reminded that His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. I have hope that He can cause all things (even my stupid selfishness, when I have turned and repented), to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

I see how seriously God takes His word, and how His commandments bring life as David said in Psalms 119. Because when we follow them, we avoid unnecessary hurt, pain, death, and destruction.

Top Movies with a purpose

I believe movies can be an excellent way to teach important life lessons. I am on a quest to identify the top 20 (or so) movies that teach important life lessons or character, or convey a very important life message. Here is my start. I will be updating the list as suggestions come in...

1. Schindler's List (Sacrifice for others)
2. Hotel Rwanda (Sacrifice for Others)
3. The Shawshank Redemption (Perseverance)
4. The Fifth Element (the power of Love to defeat evil)
5. Groundhog Day (taking advantage of circumstances to become a better person)
6. Band of Brothers (yes, I know this is a series, but overcoming incredible difficulty)
7. Rudy (going for your dreams)
8. Crash (prejudice is wrong)

My hope is to put together a collection of movies that is part of a curriculum.

I also intend to have a list of movies that are just great and everyone should see... later