Hospital
From the Series—Summer Reflections
August 26, 2004This evotional begins a new two-part series titled Summer Reflections.
One of the dangers I face as a pastor is this: my relationship with God can become a means to an end instead of an end in and of itself. I love teaching. I think it’s my gift and my calling. But there is a danger. My relationship with God can become utilitarian. There is a difference between seeking God to seek God and seeking God because you have to speak on Sunday!
I’m coming off my annual “summer sabbatical” where I take a break from teaching. The last five weeks have been about what God wants to do “in me” not “through me.” And the truth is: everything God wants to do through you He does in you first.
So over the next two weeks I just want to share some of the things the Lord has been doing in me.
Hospitals
Those of you who know me know that I’ve spent lots of time in hospitals. Only a doctor should spend as much time in the hospital as I have! I’ve had four knee surgeries for basketball related injuries. I spent several weeks in the hospital four years ago after emergency surgery for ruptured intestines. And I was hospitalized half a dozen times growing up for asthma-related symptoms. I’m the guy that makes everybody else’s health insurance premium go up!
Some of my first memories are hospital memories. Before I had an inhaler, I would often wake up in the middle of the night with difficulty breathing and my dad would take me to the emergency room for a shot of epinephrine.
Hospitals are interesting places. They smell funny. The food tastes funny. And you’ve got to wear those hospital gowns that tie in the back. Who “invented” those things anyway? “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s make fun of sick people!” We’ll make it next to impossible to tie them and they’ll never really “close” all the way!
Oh yah, one more thing. Why do doctors do their rounds at 5 AM? And then say on the way out, “Get some sleep.” I could have if you haven’t awakened me at 5 AM!
Can you tell I’ve spent too much time at hospitals?
No one likes hospitals. We avoid them at all costs. No one wants to get hurt or get sick and have to go to the hospital, but we sure are glad we’ve got them when we need them! It’s sort of that love/hate relationship. I wish I never had to go to the hospital, but I’d be dead a dozen times over if it weren’t for hospitals.
I’ll come back to hospitals a little later.
C.S. Lewis said, “Think of me as a fellow-patient in the same hospital who having been admitted a little earlier could give you some advice.”
I want to share some hospital reflections as a fellow-patient.
Sick
The healing process begins when we recognize that something is wrong with us. As long as you ignore symptoms they’ll get worse. I ignored abdominal pain for several days before my intestines finally ruptured and almost killed me four years ago. When you ignore what’s wrong it goes from bad to worse. Time doesn’t heal all wounds or we wouldn’t need doctors - just doctor’s waiting rooms!
Jesus said in Matthew 9:12, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus says something intriguing - “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” The meaning of that phrase is uncertain, but one take is that God would rather show mercy than insist on sacrifice. I think that is in keeping with His character. In other words, he’d rather have us ask for help than pretend that everything is alright. The one place you don’t want to “fake it” is the hospital.
Hit Bottom
When we were on vacation two weeks ago we rented a surry - a four person bike - and went biking around Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The first few minutes were so much fun, but then it turned into work. Our kids, bless their hearts, were pretty much “dead weight.” They couldn’t really pedal so it was up to Lora and I to make this thing move. It was sort of like biking with three little kids on your back!
So we bike for about forty-five minutes and my quads are killing me. You know how when you work out you do enough reps to feel the burn? I was way beyond the burn. And the whole time I’m thinking about this hill that we coasted down at the beginning of our bike ride. It was wonderful… on the way down. But I knew we’d have to get back up the hill on the way back!
To be perfectly honest, it was probably a 25 degree incline but it felt like a 90 degree vertical! We pedaled as hard as we could. I had visions of Lance Armstrong dancing in my head. But at some point I knew there was no way we were getting up that hill. It was like our legs went into super slow motion. We had zero momentum. We had to get off the surry and push it up the hill.
That’s how I felt four months ago. I felt like I had zero momentum. I feel like I had lost some of the joy of ministry. I felt like I was running on fumes. Part of it was preaching twenty weeks in a row without a break, but one way or another, I wasn’t doing great. What should have been fun had turned into hard work!
I’m the kind of person that doesn’t usually get down for too long. I have bad days like everybody else but I’m pretty buoyant. I tend to bounce back pretty quickly, but four months ago I hit bottom and I didn’t bounce.
Drift
I spent the last day of April by the Awakening Sculpture at Haines Point pacing and praying. At one point I noticed a bunch of driftwood that had washed up on shore. I picked up a piece and sort of felt like it was the Lord’s way of nudging me and saying, “You’ve drifted.”
To make a long story short, I set some goals for the month of May to try to get back to basics. That is really the prescription whenever we drift. Revelation 2:4 says, “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”
I did a food fast on Fridays. I tried to spend an hour in prayer everyday. I read through the New Testament in The Message translation. And I did a TV Fast (except for American Idol). I didn’t think the Lord would mind me watching the finals.
April 30, 2004 was a turning point for me. The momentum shifted in the month of May.
Let me fast forward to July 14, 2004.
40 Days
For several months I’d been feeling like God wanted me to set aside forty days for prayer and fasting. I didn’t know what he wanted me to pray about or what he wanted me to fast, but I’ve learned that sometimes the Lord tells you to do something without giving you all the details.
So I began forty days of prayer and fasting at 7:14 on 7/14. There is nothing special or spiritual about that time or that date. But the Lord had really been impressing me with II Chronicles 7:14 which says, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.”
So I felt like 7:14 on 7/14 would be a milestone and help me remember that promise. I decided to fast soda. I am a vanilla coke addict so I knew that giving up soda for forty days would be a consistent reminder. And I decided to read through the Old Testament because I felt like the Lord impressed on me that during this forty days of prayer that even more important than God hearing my voice was me hearing God’s voice!
It’s amazing how when you start reading Scripture God increases your appetite. So I actually added the New Testament and finished reading the entire Bible on Day 40. I’ve honestly never read that much Scripture in that short a time. But it was amazing the way the Lord spoke to me. Someone has said that when we close our Bibles God closes his mouth and when we open our Bibles God opens his mouth.
All I can say is that I’m not who I was forty days ago.
Curriculum Vitae
I’ve blogged almost every day (except for vacation) during my forty days of prayer and fasting. You can read the blog entries online @ http://www.theaterchurch.com. Here’s what I blogged on Day 5. “God is more concerned with who I am becoming than what I am doing.”
One of the passages that really impacted me during the past forty days was Jesus’ baptism. I feel bad saying this, but Jesus hadn’t done anything yet. I’m sure he was a great carpenter. Dorothy Sayers’ said, “I dare say that no crooked legs came out of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth.” He may have been the Ty Pennington of his day and done some extreme home makeovers, but he hadn’t done any miracles. He hadn’t done any teaching. He hadn’t cast out any demons.
So at thirty years of age he was an accomplished carpenter - no more, no less. Not exactly what you’d expect on the curriculum vitae of the Son of God.
Yet listen to what the Father says about him. “You are my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with you.” I’d probably put this passage at the very end of his ministry, but I think it’s significant that God says what he says before his ministry even begins.
Every day this week I’ve thought this thought: Christianity is not about what we can do for God. It’s about what God has already done for us.
We’re so performance based. We know that it’s by grace that we’re saved through faith. It is a gift of God, not by works! But I think performance is our default setting.
Here’s the mistake we make: we try to earn the gift. An NCCer said it this way to me last week after a prayer walk - if we earned it, it wouldn’t be mercy. When we try to earn the gift we insult God.
It’d be like something giving me a gift certificate to Ruth Chris Steak House and instead of saying “thank you,” I dig in my pocket and pull out some loose change and say, “Thanks. Here’s some change.” I’ve turned a thank you into an insult. How? I tried to pay for a gift. And I offered a lot less than it was worth!
I want to make a promise right here and now. If you give me a Ruth Chris Gift Certificate I won’t insult you. I won’t try to pay for it. I will accept it. It’s my duty as your pastor!
Unconditional
I tell my kids that I love them all the time. In fact, I told Parker a few nights ago and he said, “Don’t you think I know by now.” But I want to keep reminding them.
Usually I ask the question, “Who loves you?” And they’ll say, “Daddy.” But sometimes I’ll ask a follow-up question. I’ll ask them why. And I’ll answer the question for them. “I love you because you’re my son and there’s nothing you can do to change that.” I want my kids to know that my love is not performance-based. It is as unconditional as human love can be. I love them because I’m their Father - I can’t not love them.
Sometimes I’ll say to Summer, “If I could line up all the little girls in the world and only choose one of them to be my daughter I’d choose you.” Saint Augustine said that God loves each of us as if there only one of us! What an amazing thought!
Better or Worse
I feel like I’ve become more like Christ these last forty days. The theological word for that process is sanctification. At times it’s been painful. But it’s been joyful as well.
What I find interesting is that the more and more I become like Christ the more and more aware I become of my sinfulness - especially my motives. But as I become more aware of my sinfulness I become more aware of God’s grace!
Here is the fundamental mistake many of us make: we minimize sinfulness and thereby minimize mercy. We underestimate sinfulness so we underestimate mercy. But it’s only when we realize the full extent of our sin that we appreciate the full extent of God’s mercy!
C.S. Lewis said it this way. “When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.” Those of you who are getting better understand that. Those of you who aren’t don’t.
Here is what God is after: a simple, heartfelt “thank you.”
It’s not the “level of righteousness” but the “level of gratitude” that touches the heart of God. Jesus tells a story in Luke 7 and basically says that those who have sinned a lot have an advantage over those who have sinned a little. Jesus asks Peter who is more grateful - the person who have been forgiven a huge debt or the person who has been forgiven a small debt? Peter gets the answer right. And Jesus says this about the prostitute who poured perfume on his feet, “I tell you, her sins - and they are many - have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only a little love.”
It’s not about what we can do for God. It’s about appreciating what God has done for us. What a load off our shoulders!
I read Donald Trump’s book How to Get Rich a few months ago and at one point in his career he was $9.2 billion dollars in debt. One day he walked by someone who was asking for money and it dawned on him that the person asking for money who had nothing was actually worth $9.2 billion more than he was!
For what it’s worth, I did a little math. If you were working for the current minimum wage, $5.15 per hour, you’d have to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 122,357 years to pay off that debt!
Some of you have been trying so hard, but let me remind you that it’s not what you can do for God. It’s about what He can do for you. All we have to do is let God cancel the debt!
Kiss It
It’s interesting the way my kids react to injury and sickness. I think our primal response as children - and Josiah is at this stage right now - is to ask mom or dad to “kiss it and make it better.” I think God is looking for that kind of response in us - a simple, childlike request for him to make it better.
Some of you are sick. You need help. There is no point walking into a hospital and hiding your symptoms - faking that everything is ok.
That’s what hospitals are for. That is what doctors are for. That is what churches are for. That is what the Great Physician is for.
But most of us feel bad that we feel bad.
Stick with me.
The strength of memory is based on the strength of emotion. We don’t remember unemotional things. But emotional experiences can be seared into our long-term memory forever.
I can vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night with tightness in my chest and going into my parent’s room. I can vividly remember waking them up. I’d whisper, “Mom, Dad. I can’t breath.” And I remember feeling bad about waking them up.
I’ve got to give my parents props. They never once complained about taking me to the hospital in the middle of the night. In fact, my mom used to sleep at the hospital whenever I was admitted and I don’t think my dad has ever complained about anything!
Regardless, I felt bad that I felt bad. But if my parents knew that I felt bad about feeling bad I guarantee that they would have felt bad that I felt bad about feeling bad.
I think God feels bad that we feel bad about feeling bad. If you’re sick He just wants to help you. He just wants to heal you.
Check yourself in.