Just before Noah received his heart transplant at two months
of age, there was a day that I thought he might not survive. I wrote the following about it on April 3,
2007 in a post called “Hope” on this blog that I used to keep to let people
know how we were doing amidst the treatment of Noah’s heart defect:
His skin was grey and I feared that
if I touched him, I’d find it cold. His eyes were open about a quarter of the
way, but completely unresponsive from what I could tell.
I went on to write that I didn’t have much hope:
I didn’t know what to do so I stood
a little behind Maria and rubbed her back. I had come all that way to give her
encouragement, but as I stood there, I felt that I had nothing to give. The
little flicker of hope inside of me seemed to be gone.
I don’t remember exactly what happened as I drove home late
that night, but I recall being worried that our family, especially Maria, would
be scarred for life if Noah didn’t make it.
I wept. I don’t know how I made
it back home because I wept uncontrollably.
I was comforted at some point during my weeping, though, which caused me
to cry more. It was as if God himself
had told me that everything would be OK.
I felt confident enough from that point on to be able to support my
family again through Noah’s heart transplant.
I now look back and see the comfort I felt as a message from
God affirming that everything would be OK.
God’s message delivered straight to me! Unfortunately, back then my
faith wasn’t as strong as it is now. Even
though the experience I had in the car was emotionally powerful, it wasn’t
something to boast about, so I kept it to my skeptical self. It’s a shame to me now that I didn’t wholly
recognize how blessed I was that God gave me that direct message. Of all the people in the world, God gave me a
message!
Fast forward seven years, or so. I’ve grown in faith now, and I’m hearing from
my church pastor about a mission trip to Haiti that he is planning. Yes, I’ve grown in faith, but I’m not the guy
that can drop it all and go on a mission trip.
I’m in my mid 30’s with three kids, now.
Maybe I can help sponsor someone else to go? A sponsor certainly seemed like a more
realistic calling for me, but God gave me another message. Again, I don’t recall exactly how it came to
me but God said “Go!” Unwillingly, I
went. God gave me another direct message
and that week-long mission trip I took more than five years ago is still
transforming me.
Presently, I have literally been sick with anxiety over the
fallout from the coronavirus epidemic for the past week. I barely got over the flu at the beginning of
last week and by the end of last week, the kids’ sports seasons had been cut
off, stores were empty, and schools and churches were closed indefinitely. It is a lot of change coming at us really
fast and it scares me.
Monday night, I started re-reading Richard J. Foster’s book Celebration
of Discipline. Foster ended the
introduction of the 20th anniversary copy I have with the Latin
phrase Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God
alone). When I looked up the phrase on
my phone to translate it, I saw videos and I clicked on one of a song called Soli Deo Gloria. It was a nice song, but I didn’t listen to
the whole thing. What caught my eye was
the video under it, “Max Lucado – Why are you Afraid ?”, which was a 12-minute sermon
by Max Lucado on Jesus and his disciples in the stormy sea. Being afraid of the world’s trajectory, I
watched the Max Lucado video and it helped.
I sent a link to the video to Maria and said:
Bizarre, I was reading and looked up
the translation of a Latin phrase and this short sermon on fear popped up. Maybe God, maybe Google, or maybe God works
at Google…
After viewing the sermon, I wondered if it was indeed God
giving me another message. I got down on
my knees at the end of my bed and thanked God for being there for me and then I
said I didn’t know what else to ask for and I began to sob. I was just a blubbering idiot for the next 10
minutes. When I calmed down, I wanted to resume reading but I couldn’t
understand why I was crying. I Google searched “hear from God and weep” which
led me to a post on TalkJesus.com where someone had posed a question of why we
cry when deep in worship. One of the respondents
said “Maybe it has something to do with Romans 8:26+27.”
26 In the same way, the Spirit
helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the
Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who
searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27, NIV)
I was blown away when I read that because I had just told
God that I didn’t know what to ask for and sobbed uncontrollably for several
minutes. Had my weeping really been the
Spirit himself interceding for me? By
now, I’m sure that the whole event was orchestrated by God to give me the
message that He was there. He had
steered me to the sermon I needed to hear and He had let me know that the Holy
Spirit had been there pleading for my needs.
I got our big Bible out to read the rest of Romans 8. I read Romans 8:26-27 again and read into
Romans 8:28 where I was awestruck once again. I realized that Romans 8:28 was
the verse I had sent in a random text message to my sister the previous day to
which she replied “Amen!”
28 And we know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to
his purpose. (Romans 8:28, NIV)
Tim
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