Those are hours I would much rather have been engaged in the ministry to which the Lord called me, hours I wanted to be doing “normal” things and, often, hours I cried out with questions about being sidelined with pain.

But they were also hours during which the Lord spoke to my heart. And one of the tools He used to teach me a key lesson was the set of wood blinds hanging in our window.

When I sat up in bed and turned the blinds down, they directed my vision toward the busy street filled with (seemingly) well people going about the business of their day. I could imagine them heading to and from work to support their family, shuttling children to school or practice, or heading out to a dinner date.

Sometimes as I observed those healthy people going about their normal routines in their shiny vehicles, my spirit drifted toward discontentment: I wanted all those things. Self pity crept in, accompanied with envy, and it left me more sick in my heart than I was in my body.

Over the years, it really became a battleground for me until it dawned on me I should change the orientation of the blinds. So one day I simply kept pulling on the adjustment string until the blinds faced heavenward. Now every glance toward the window directed my vision out to the treetops, the clouds, and the sky.

Instantly, there was a very physical aid to my spiritual battle—a way to focus on God’s vastness, goodness, and power. Each time I looked over, I’d try to thank the Lord for something specific I saw or for His control over everything I saw. Now the window became a doorway for worship, rather than the temptation to dissatisfaction.

It’s a simple lesson, but it’s not a new one. An earth-bound focus is foreign and sinful for the Christian. Since we have been raised with Christ, we’re commanded to consciously: “Set your affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2). Taking stock of how we’re doing at that is a good thing.

Which direction are your “blinds” tilted today?

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When we experience trials—sickness, the betrayal or death of a loved one, financial devastation, the loss of a career—it can be difficult to move forward again with the same faith we might have had in our youth. The longer our hopes are deferred, the easier it is for our hearts to grow sick (Prov. 13:12). Especially if our bodies are older, our capacities are changed, or the circumstances around us have moved on, we’re prone to wonder if God can raise anything beautiful from the ashes.

In times like these, passages like Psalm 107 draw our focus with the lighthouse-beam of God’s changeless character. Whatever else goes on in our lives, this will always remain true of Jehovah: “He is good…His steadfast love endures forever!” (v. 1)

That’s how the chapter begins. And it ends with the counsel: “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let him consider the steadfast love of the Lord” (v. 43). The truly wise person will ponder God’s loyal love and its numerous demonstrations.  That should be the magnet for my mind.

Sandwiched between these two bookends of the chapter are four scenarios of severe distress, in which God’s people experienced His intervening love (vv. 4-9, 10-16, 17-22, 23-32). In each case, the turning point began when His children recognized their need and called out to the Lord for rescue (v. 6, 13, 19, 28).

Some who are suffering may wonder if they’ve exempted themselves from God’s help—if at least a measure of what they experience is a result of their own sinful choices or prideful heart. Even if that is the case, the clear implication of Psalm 107 gives hope. Both of the middle scenarios describe people whose refusal to be ruled by God’s Word brought on their trials (see vv. 11-12, 17-18). Our God shows Himself just as eager to deliver these believers when they turn to Him as He is to deliver those whose suffering is not a consequence of sin (cf. 13, 19; 6, 28). What faithful love!

But the image I’ve found most riveting this weekend before my birthday is the description in verses 35-42.  It recalls what God can do when it seems He has basically nothing to work with. The verses picture the transformation of a desert to standing pools of water, an uninhabitable, parched land into a place of bubbling springs, productive fields and vineyards, and a city where formerly hungry people now live satisfied.

It’s a reminder that, no matter our age or circumstance, it should be easy to trust that the One Who spoke everything from nothing (Gen. 1) can bring something beautiful from the ashes. Though our lives may have changed, He and His love for us have not—and will not. He is the Wellspring of our faith for the future, whatever He may ordain.

When I ponder that, my heart joins the refrain of Psalm 107 (verses 8, 15, 21, 31):

Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness [steadfast love], and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

O Love, that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
(George Matheson — 1842-1906)

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Silence can be surprise.

Silence can be reflection.

Silence can be awe.

Quite a few people have asked me lately why I haven’t been writing more about what I’m learning from the Lord at this period in life.

My answer is that I’m in a season of silence; but I need to clarify.  It’s not that God is silent—He’s teaching me quite a lot, and I’m trying to journal about the most important themes.

The issue is that those lessons are too green, too fresh, too deep still to see with proper perspective.  Just as I begin to feel like I’m grasping what God has intended to teach me through a wave of trial, God breaks me further and reveals just how carnal my heart still is.

Though I’m trying to mine the riches of testing by making notes about how the Lord is using Scripture in my heart, the lessons of the past eight or nine months (and these eight years) are like standing on holy ground.  Like Job, it is best right now that I cover my mouth with my hand, just to listen to God reveal His greatness, power, and incomparable wisdom (Job 40:4-5).

Seeing God like this is exactly what I have needed, and I am grateful for the suffering the Lord has used as the tool to bring me to this place.  If any of this can be of help to others, it will be a joy to share.

I just have to wait for confirmation that the lessons being learned in darkness are ready to be brought into the light.  Please bear with me.

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The remaining physical battle is with chronic migraines, which were originally triggered by the Lyme disease and may or may not go away. A normal week consists of 6-9 migraines (with no set time of day or duration), and I spend quite a few hours isolated from light and sound. This has been the norm since December 2016, but it is an improvement over the number of migraines I experienced weekly with Lyme disease.

My family and I have seen God’s goodness, love and provision throughout this time, and we continue to learn priceless lessons from it. While we are still pursuing traditional and alternative treatments, our confidence is in God. Healing is an easy thing for Him, if that’s His desire; but He may also choose to glorify Himself through my continued weakness. Either way is fine with us.

With grateful and surrendered hearts we say, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy Name!”

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During one of my nostalgic times, as I reflected upon those who are with the Lord, I wrote the following poem.  As Anne Bradstreet and other poets have said, publishing a poem is like sending a child out into the world.  It is imperfect, limping in its meter, and could be improved upon in countless ways.  But I pray you will judge it kindly and that, perhaps, it will cause you to stop, remember the people God gave you at the most formative times in your life, give thanks for their influence, and resolve to emulate them in ways that will glorify God and edify others.

I wish you a blessed 2018!

We Can’t Go Back

We can’t go back
Into the arms that rocked us while we cried,
Or wiped away our sniffles or life’s crises.

We can’t go back
To hear those stories told by old, old friends
That made us feel we fit somehow in something bigger than ourselves.

We can’t go back
To hear those voices that soothed us,
To feel those arms enfold us–
Always accepting and welcoming without hesitation.

But we can smell their closeness when we close our eyes,
Recall the timbre of their voices, sense their lips brushing past our ears
Or feel again–just for an instant–their assurance that all is well;

Then gather strength to stand and BE that one we miss;
To be that one whose void lives after our strength and stories fade—
For we, like they, made one life precious at a time.

SBJ
2/23/13

(Final version Dec. 29, 2017—When thinking of my Great-grandmother, Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, Louise Connell, Pearl Wilkins, Miss Sarah, DLH, Joyce Parks, and a long list of others who invested themselves in my life and showed me how to love God and others from my childhood until God took (or takes) them Home).

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What we must remember is that Satan, the arch enemy of our God and of our souls, is not limited to using certain types of temptation only during certain seasons of life. In fact, it serves his purposes well when he can blind-side us with temptations we thought we had overcome (or outlived). Scripture drives that lesson home when it tells the one who thinks he stands to take all the more heed, lest he fall (I Cor. 10:12)

Getting hit anew by temptations we thought we were overcoming can be a terribly discouraging and defeating experience–one that can even make us wonder about our salvation. But I want to encourage younger believers to expect that kind of temptation…and expect those temptations to get WORSE the greater your level of responsibility and the more people depending upon your leadership in life.

For example, the first year I served as President of Bob Jones University was honestly one of the hardest years of spiritual warfare in my life. I’ve told my wife and a number of young friends that my areas of heaviest personal temptation intensified about 400% throughout that year, leaving me confused, discouraged, doubting, and wanting out. God got me through that year and ministered to my heart the following summer, but I was nearly overwhelmed by the fierceness of the battle.

Looking back, I realize that I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised. In his ultimately doomed warfare against God, the devil tries to trip us up and defeat God’s purposes in our lives. Ultimately Jesus WILL complete the work He has begun in us and will present us perfectly righteous before the Father. But until then, we have a supernatural adversary trying to defeat us. And the more responsibility the Lord gives us in life–a spouse, a family, positions of ministry or business influence–the more destructive Satan’s attacks have the potential to be. Because if Satan can cause parents or pastors or successful Christian businesspeople to fall, there’s increased potential that our failures will also spell spiritual defeat for the individuals depending on us . . . or that he can bring scandal to the Name of Jesus through some public failure.

So please just store this tidbit away for the days when you inherit more responsibility, prominence, and influence. When that advancement comes, EXPECT the spiritual battle to intensify and don’t be discouraged or surprised when the storms of temptation hit with new force. In fact, get ready for it: Make no provision for your lustful flesh, commit God’s Word to memory in areas of your greatest struggles, be assured that “Greater is He who is in you, than he that is in the world” (I Jn. 4:4), lean on the Holy Spirit’s strength, and rejoice in God’s promise that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I Jn. 1:9).

Make use of God’s provisions for the battle. Don’t let Satan bring you down just as God is lifting you to new heights of influence and effectiveness for Him.

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Early in that first summer, one of the full-time staff invited all of us to his house for a devotional time. It made a deep impression that Rudy (not his real name) and his wife Violet (not her name) would go to the effort and invite us to get away from the camp for a while in their home.

The more I worked with Rudy and all the full-time staff, the more I saw his huge heart for God and for others. In one situation, I saw him working with one of my campers who was more than I could handle. Patiently, lovingly, and filled with God’s Word, Rudy touched that child’s life and started to deal with some of the core issues. Some people wear off their testimony, but others grow on you; and that’s what Rudy and Violet did.

At one point Rudy shared with a group of us that he and Violet had tried to have children for almost a decade, but weren’t able. So they told us they were going through the adoption process and kept us updated. At some point in the following school year, Rudy called with the thrilling news that the adoption agency had located a child for them. But within months, the birth mother changed her mind, and Rudy and Violet went home to grieve in an empty house.

The second summer I worked there, Rudy and Violet again got called. A young teen was expecting a little girl, but didn’t want it. They visited the birth mother and endured numerous other evaluations of their home and their suitability for a child. But even these hurdles seems tiny compared to their joy.

After birth, the mother transferred the papers to my friends. To say they were ecstatic is too tame a word. They instantly became the godly parents we had observed every summer as they worked with campers and counselors. They were happier than I’ve ever seen them.

A couple of months into the following school year, I again got a call from Rudy. He explained that Pennsylvania had a law allowing a birth mother a certain number of weeks/months to reconsider. If she changes her mind during that period, it cancels the adoption. Their baby had only been with them for four to six months, but the teen mother decided she wanted to try to raise her daughter.

Again, we were all in shock and aching for our friends. After having a baby and creating a family home, Rudy and Violet now had to pack up their nursery things and pass back the daughter who had been “theirs” since her birth.

Many of us questioned God’s goodness and His justice. Here was a young couple dedicating themselves to ministry, praying for a child, but investing themselves in other people’s children. Rudy, on the other hand, tried to help all of US work through our grief for them.

During my third and last summer of camp work, Rudy shared that they had once again been contacted with the possibility of an adopted child. This time they were still excited, but more reserved. The extra exciting thing we learned was that this was going to be a little boy–the perfect match for a Christian School teacher who was also a die-hard sports coach and fan!

We prayed about it all summer, and then kept in touch often to make sure nothing had gone wrong. Nothing did…and little Michael has now been a part of the family for almost 20 years!

But less than a year after Michael arrived, Rudy called with news of Violet. During some testing the doctors had found a mass in her abdomen. It turned out to be cancer with limited treatment options, given its progression. I wept with Rudy on the phone and again prayed and wrestled with God. It just seemed that this couple DESERVED better from the God, Who had already tested their faith in heart-broking ways.

Violet endured multiple treatments, surgeries, nutrition regimens, and medicines, but the cancer continued to grow. All in all, Violet had about three years more with Rudy and Michael.

When I heard that she was close to finishing her race and had been moved to a facility that tries to make terminal patients as comfortable as possible during their last days (otherwise known as “palliative care,” I called Rudy to let him know they were constantly in our prayers.

Even as the phone on his end rang, I began sobbing. Rudy picked up, we cried together, and I asked about Violet and Michael.

Rudy shared something on the phone that I will never forget. He said that he and Michael had just been down to the little stream on the property, because Rudy felt he needed to help Michael prepare for Violet’s Homegoing as best he could. After talking about Mommy going to live with God and being free from any more pain, Michael asked simply: “Are we going to be OK without her, Daddy?” Rudy answered, “Yes,” but Michael immediately asked how his dad knew that so certainly. Rudy said he started internal panic prayer for the right answer. Then God gave it to him.

“Michael, I know we’re going to be OK because God loves us, and everything that touches us is filtered through Him, to make sure it’s good for us.” A short paused punctuated the conversation; then Michael looked up at his dad, satisfied, and said: “You’re right; we’re going to be OK with a God like that.”

That thought has often come back to me in hardship and many times in my own illness. I pray it’s a thought that will change your life, too–whether people have hurt you, illness stalks you, or you daily wake to face disablement, Go back and read the first two chapters of Job, Christian. Read them well. Note Satan’s destructive, malicious intent, and then note that Satan could have never touched Job’s family, wealth, position, and body, unless God allowed it and intended good for Job through it.

Remember this blessing of being a Christian: Nothing can touch our lives unless it has first come through God.

(In Memory of Violet Soane–a friend, a Godly example, a wonderful wife and mother, and an ongoing inspiration to trust God’s hand and timing.)

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Privileged to be reared in a Christian home, find a Christian wife, and have three healthy Christian children….But my faith in Christ isn’t familial or cultural—it’s a personal relationship with the One who died for me. Privileged to work among Christian college students, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University, and get to know them as friends. Right now I’m waiting on the Lord to heal my body, if He wills, and waiting on God’s direction for our future–whether or not healing is part of that. In the meantime, I’m working with a friend to start an antiques appraisal, sales, and design business. I Inherited my grandfather’s love of architecture, antiques, gemstones, and interior design and am just trying to develop those gifts for whatever God may have in store. I pray these musings and postings will be an encouragement to many hearts, and that they will introduce many to the “God Who is There,” and His Son Who died for our sins, “that where He is, we may be with Him.”

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Sunday morning after spending time in Scripture, I picked up where I had left off readingA Path Through Suffering, by Elisabeth Elliot (who went Home to be with the Lord the same day).  She recounted a phone call in which she was trying to provide comfort to a 30-year-old cancer patient and mother of three young children.  After counseling, encouraging, and praying for the mother.  Later, as she lay in bed, Elisabeth Elliot replayed in her mind the things that had transformed her own view of suffering over the years.  They are separate paragraphs in the book, but I’ll number them hear for ease of grasping each powerful truth:

1. “Suffering was indispensable for the world’s salvation.
2. “There was no other way but the cross.
3. “The servant is not greater than his Lord.
4. “If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him.
5. “Shall we not follow the Master in suffering as in everything else, sharing with Him in His work, that the world and the devils themselves [think of the opening chapters of the Book of Job] may be shown in this [day]that we love the Father and will do just as He says?  The world does not want want to be told.  The world must be shown-shown the very guts of faith.”

A Path Through Suffering

Elisabeth Elliot

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As some of you know, God has put me in a desert period for the time being–for the last four years, in fact.  One October day in 2010 I woke with vertigo so bad I couldn’t get out of bed and couldn’t hold down more than one meal a day.  Over three years God led me to the help of various Christian doctors–beginning with our family doctor, Dr. Saito, and reaching as far as Christian specialists at Jacksonville Hearing and Balance Institute in Jacksonville, FL, and in the neurology and pain center at Cleveland Clinic in OH.

Through the help of those gifted Christians, my symptoms decreased in frequency and severity, but it has never pleased the Lord to bring things enough under control that I can do adequately and consistently enough what I believe the Lord called me to when I was about 6.  God’s goodness, shown directly to my family and me, and His goodness demonstrated to us abundantly and repeatedly through co-laborers and others in Jesus’ Body, has been astounding.

However, I have to admit that my faith grows repeatedly weak, emotions are always near the surface, and there are many days I cry out to God for release or relief.  Sometimes the “shadows” of this “valley experience” of the Christian walk seem too great to face one more day, and other times the Accuser shouts that God has somehow forgotten us and that friends and mentors have abandoned us (cf. Psalm 38-40, where the Psalmist felt almost identical, particularly Ps. 38:11), leaving our already-pained hearts and nearly broken spirits gasping and grasping for relief.

And all of those emotions are lies.  Sure, even David felt that way, but each time, God lifted David’s eyes heavenward and Truth-ward.  So I’ve done a lot of reading by Christian authors who’ve hurt.  I’ve got two books running now, and it helps to be reminded again and again that: a.) suffering is part of God’s plan for helping us die to ourselves and become even more fruitful; and b.) Jesus suffered first–unimaginably beyond anything we will ever be asked to bear–and He did it for the joy before Him–to exhaust God’s wrath against our sins, to demonstrate both God’s love and His justice, and to bring sinners like us to Christ for salvation.  That’s truth.

One of the Christian books that has helped prevent me from crumbling into self-pity over my own narrative of pain is Off-Script, by Cary Schmidt, a pastor who received a cancer diagnosis and was immediately thrust into the same kind of pain, doubts, and fear that almost every sufferer faces.  One thing that stood out in his book was his encouragement to write a prayer of thanks to God–focusing on what’s true, and leaving what’s uncertain up to God’s goodness and control.  So back in January, when my symptoms kept me holed up in a New York City hotel room for multiple days, I wrote a prayer.

God burdened me to share this prayer today, because it (combined with the ministry of the Word of God today), has helped plant my feet for another “round” of trusting God against the battery of pain, uncertainty, and the lies of my emotions.  Though God burdened me to share it, I’m burdened that in sharing some could see it as spiritual bragging–making myself out to be more godly than I am.  Exactly the opposite is true.  Sharing this is humbling, because it simply unveils my feebleness and carnality amidst “suffering” that Paul calls “light”–suffering that will one day be swallowed up and forgotten by the glory to be revealed to God’s children.

This is directed to our gracious, good, and sovereign Heavenly Father:

“I thank You for this illness, for its duration, and for the grace you gave in realizing that my resignation was the right thing for BJU and for us.  It hurts more than I can say, and the way ahead is dark; but if You’ll hold my hand, I promise to walk forward with You.

“Please help me steward this trial for my family and then for others around us.  Remove self from any of it.  Help me merely be Your servant seeking to take what You have entrusted to me and invest it for Your glory and gain.

“Please help me guard my emotions with Your Truth.  Please do whatever You know to be needed in my heart.  ‘Lord, I believe…help Thou my unbelief!’  And please draw our family closer to You and closer to each other as we walk each step with You and see You one day open a path before us.

“And in all, may Jesus Christ be praised and may Your Name be hallowed in and through our lives.

“I love You, my God and my Redeemer.”

Stephen (Jan. 12, 2014)

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