“It is my expectation
and hope that I won’t be put to shame in anything. Rather, I hope with daring
courage that Christ’s greatness will be seen in my body, now as always,
whether I live or die. Because for me, living serves Christ and dying is even
better. If I continue to live in this world, I get results from my work.
But I don’t know what I prefer. I’m torn between the two because I want to
leave this life and be with Christ, which is far better. However, it’s more
important for me to stay in this world for your sake. I’m sure of this: I will
stay alive and remain with all of you to help your progress and the joy of your
faith, and to increase your pride in Christ Jesus through my presence when I
visit you again.” Philippians 1:20-26
Merry Christmas! What a year! Five months ago I was sitting
in a hospital room in Erie,
Pennsylvania wondering if I’d even make it to
Christmas. Being told you have metastatic cancer that has invaded your liver
and may be pancreatic in origin is really tough to hear. Now, five months later
I’m still here and, thanks to improved treatment options with some serious
surgical intervention on the horizon, it looks like I might be around for far
longer than I originally anticipated. To say that this year has been like
riding a chaotic, emotional roller coaster is an understatement. God has been
faithful and I have been blessed to be surrounded by people who have loved,
supported, and prayed for me all along the way. The journey is changing from
being a sprint, to being a marathon of managing a chronic disease for, perhaps,
a decade or maybe more. The process will involve continuing cancer treatments
every month for the rest of my life, significant surgery every few years, and
dealing with a variety of symptoms that are likely to arise as the disease
continues to be part of my daily life. My prayer is that I can say, like Paul,
“living serves Christ…If I continue to live in this world, I will get results
from my work.”
What have I learned amidst the chaos? What am I gleaning on
this roller coaster of my mortality? My challenge for 2014 is to maintain my
focus and not drift back into survival mode and lose focus again now that God
has allowed me to re-boot my life. As I look back on the previous years a few
things come immediately to mind: I have had my faith in humanity restored; I am
getting clearer about separating the important from the urgent; and I am
learning that relationships are more important that accomplishments.
Faith in Humanity
Ministry can make you cynical. Like my friends who work with
social services or in the mental health field, I often deal with people who are
in a difficult time in their lives. Whether it is due to a broken system, a
broken relationship, or broken choices, pastors strive to bring the good news
of the gospel into people’s lives. Because desperate people do desperate things
we often see the darker side of live. Also, because so much of what is done in
ministry is immeasurable, there are very few ways to quantify whether you are
making a difference. You work tirelessly and seemingly endlessly, but often do
not see the product of your efforts. Oh, certainly, I know the scriptures about
how “some scatter, some water, but God brings the harvest,” but occasionally it
would be good to be the harvester and not just the planter. In the church that
I currently serve, the previous five years has been a difficult season for us despite
my best efforts. As we retool for the future, we strive to become more focused
on making a difference in our community and becoming more intensely missionally
focused. Before my illness my heart was beset with discouragement.
When I returned from Pennsylvania, fresh with a terminal
diagnosis and staggering from the shock that I may be dead before the new year,
I was blown away by the prayer, support, and affection that I received. My
congregation, in my absence, had a prayer vigil and the altar was filled with
people from St. Paul as well as friends from the community, who came together
to pray for me and my family. The outpouring of love and concern was almost
overwhelming. Then somebody we don’t know offered us the chance to get away to
the Outer Banks for a week to process the news we had received and to recover
from my recent attack. Friends raised money to send me and my family to Florida
for a family vacation and arranged lodging for us at no cost.
Others donated
money to assist with medical expenses, opened their hearts and homes to us, and
provided strong shoulders to cry upon whenever needed. To say that my family
has been blessed during this difficult time is an understatement. Never in my
life have I received so many blessings in such a short time. I grew up with a
“pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get on with it” philosophy of life,
never asking for anything and just getting by when times were tough. These past
five months have allowed me to jettison some of that building cynicism about
people and renewed my faith in humanity. When given the chance, and the excuse,
people rise to be the best version of themselves. For this my family and I are
truly thankful.
Clarity of Conviction
Another gift the awareness of my mortality has given me is
an increased clarity of conviction. The urgent is always pressing upon me.
Deadlines are always looming. For a pastor it seems that Sunday comes every
other day, not to mention meetings, denominational responsibilities, and
pastoral situations that demand immediate attention. The urgent is so loud that
often the important gets shoved to the side and neglected.
Since my diagnosis I have to manage my life at a level I
never have in the past. Suddenly my endless energy has limits. Every day I am
forced to look at the myriad of demands that come my way and decide which ones
are actually important and which ones, if left undone, will have little
consequence. When you believe your time is short, when you really believe that
your life is “a vapor” you become extremely careful where you invest it. I have
resigned organization boards, realigned my schedule, and even returned to
dancing with my wife on a regular basis, all because I’m gaining clarity of
conviction. I want to have a full life, and a fulfilled life, not just a busy
one. Crammed calendars are not indicators of worth, but of chaos. I now look at
opportunities and ask, “Is this worth investing my life in?” If not, then I
respectfully decline.
Saying no is hard for somebody who has spent most of his
life trying to prove his worth. One of the things that is becoming clearer in
my life is my interior motivations. I realize that I have never felt worthy of
love. As such I have tried desperately to earn affection through academic
achievement, professional advancement, and community involvement. All of these things
are good and worthwhile endeavors and I'm glad I am invested in them, but the
conviction that has become clearest for me in the past five months is that God
loves me for me, not for what I do or how many degrees I obtain. With that in
mind I am free to invest my life where my convictions lead me and not where I
feel obligated in pursuit of recognition. I can give myself to making a
difference. “Living serves Christ…” I want to live like Christ.
Relationships over
Accomplishments
I am learning that the most important thing I can do is to
invest in relationships. One of the greatest gifts the awareness of my
mortality has given me is the reconnection with people from my past who have
reached out to me and let me know that the time we spent together, however
brief, made a difference in their lives. Like the letter I received from a
former staff person, Andrea, who I love like a daughter. Her letter came on one
of those dark days when I doubted whether anything I had done in ministry would
amount to more than “wood, hay, and stubble.” Her letter, handwritten and laced
with a sprinkling of sarcastic humor, humbled me with expressions of affection
and outlining the impact I had made upon her life as she struggled with her
call to be a Christian leader as a woman and pastor. Another note from Rob, a
U.S. Army chaplain who outlined how our time together prepared him for the
challenges he would face in ministry. Literally dozens of people from my past
of all ages reached out to me and shared how our interaction had helped them
learn to love God and answer His call in some way.
More importantly than those in my past, several of the
people in the congregation I serve now approached me to let me know that their
relationship with God was growing because of my time with them. Suddenly the
immeasurable was becoming tangible. This showed me that all of those
conversations over coffee, those times sitting in homes during difficult days,
and just the daily interaction with people as I tried to let them see the small
part of me that reflected Christ actually had an impact. That even though I
wasn’t serving the “mega-church” that I dreamed of serving in my youth that I
was making a difference in a lot of people’s lives. That the investment in
relationships far outweighs any accomplishment I could ever attain.
What’s Next?
What’s next after this year of living chaotically? My prayer
is that some sense of equilibrium will return to my life this year though I’m
not sure that is even possible in this crazy world in which we live. I guess my
best hope is to strive to keep living what I'm learning.
In some ways it feels as though I have been born again—again.
Five months ago my prayer had been to share one more Christmas with my family.
Now, after some serious prayer, lots of shots, and surgery on the horizon, I
have been gifted with a new life to live. I have been gifted with a new life
that will require greater focus and intense clarity of my convictions. It will
demand a focus on relationships over accomplishments and I will strive to
maintain my renewed faith in humanity. So my prayer, like Paul’s above, is that
as long as God gives me to live, I will live as a servant of Christ.
Gracious God, thank
you for the chaotic life I lead. Thank you for the gift of the awareness of my
mortality that I have received in the past several months. Help me to live a
life worthy of the calling you have placed in my life, a life focused on
relationships rather than accomplishments, a life with clarity of conviction,
and faith in humanity. Allow me to live for You that You may shine through me.
In the name of the One who died that I might live, Jesus, I pray. Amen.
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