Cheer Up, It Could be a Brain Tumor

Ever since I announced that I and several members of our family had been tested for COVID last week, I have received daily inquiries about how we are feeling and whether we are symptomatic. I am grateful for the concern and completely flummoxed as to how to respond. After all, all of us felt fine when we were tested and in the days immediately afterwards. But over the weekend I had a mildly sore throat for a couple of days, for the last couple of days I have had a moderate headache, and several times I have felt a little winded, usually near the end of my daily run of 3-5 miles. Obviously, I must have COVID and should expect any day now to check into the ICU. Or maybe it is allergy season, maybe I had a mild cold, maybe my voice is strained from reading aloud to my kids for a couple of hours on the Lord’s Day, maybe it is hard to run 5 miles when the temperature outside has already hit 100 degrees. Then there was that monkey bite. He assured me he had not been out of the country recently, but when have you ever known a monkey to tell the truth?

How am I feeling? I’m feeling fine! Does that mean I am well? Of course not. Some of you were feeling fine just before you were diagnosed with cancer. Maybe the sore throat and headache are a sign of something very serious. Maybe I do have COVID and my symptoms will grow worse. If you are feeling unwell at all, it must be COVID. There can be no other explanation. Don’t bother me with statistics and declining mortality associated with the virus. Don’t tell me that hospitals are not overrun and that the vast majority of people, more than 99% of those under the age of elderly, are in no serious danger from this virus. Don’t bother me with facts because I have seen the news and received expert epidemiological insights from my friends on Instabook and Facegram. I know better than you that we are all going to die.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

(Psalm 139:16)

Being born is a terminal condition. Unless Jesus returns first or you prove to be another Enoch or Elijah, every one of us is going to die someday. It may be sooner than we expect, or much later. It may be in circumstances that we will be able to anticipate, or it may catch us completely by surprise. It may result from factors we might have seemed to be able to avoid, or it might be the consequence of factors entirely out of our control. But you are going to die someday, and so am I. God already wrote every day of our lives in his book before the first day of our life began. He did not tell me how many days there will be in my story, and I don’t need to know. I only need to focus on being faithful today in view of that day when I stand before him, knowing that one day today will be that day.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:28-29)

What exactly are you afraid of? “I’m not afraid of death, Pastor, I’m just afraid of dying.” If I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me, I’d have a lot of dollars. Three times in my life I have been laid in a hospital bed and thought seriously I would not leave it alive. Three times in my life I have prayed what I thought would be my last prayer before seeing Christ face-to-face. Those moments are clarifying. I decided after the first time I would rather not die in a hospital bed. But I don’t have much control over that, and neither do you. I can eat my plant-based diet and avoid heart disease and diabetes, only to choke to death on a brussel sprout. I can run and exercise five or six days a week and control my weight and blood pressure, only to be hit by a car or keel over from heat stroke. Or I can become sick or injured again through circumstances outside of my control and end up, once again, in that hospital bed, praying what I think may be my last prayer, only next time maybe it will be.

It is easy to live in fear. This world is a scary place, and I have a very fragile body. God could have made us gorillas, but the man hasn’t been made who would not be torn limb from limb in hand to hand combat with a great ape. We each have a large brain with extraordinary cognitive capacity and also an easily cracked skull. God made our bodies to heal and repair themselves in ways that defy scientific understanding, but those same bodies grow weaker and more susceptible to injury and disease as long as we live. I don’t know if I have COVID or not, but I have been dying for more than 41 years. Some conditions might kill me more quickly, but being born on this side of the Fall will get the job done. Man is born to trouble, and thus man is subject to fear. But the Bible calls us away from fear, to walk by faith in God’s sovereign and saving purpose.

The Lord wrote every day of my life in his book before my life began. He wrote about the fall from a tree as a young child that wounded my pride but did not seriously hurt me. He wrote about the car crash sometime later that cracked my sister’s skull and sent several members of our family to the hospital but did not kill any of us. He wrote about the childhood illness that became a defining feature of my life and altered my path and career plans forever. He wrote about the miscarriage, about my son’s near-death experience with the same condition that afflicted me, and about the three times I lay in a hospital bed and thought I had seen my wife and children for the last time. He wrote about each of those experiences--and only he knows how many more--and he wrote them into the story so that in some way his glory would be more fully displayed and I would become more like Christ. We know, not we think, not we hope, not maybe if everything works out, we know that all things, not some things, not just good things, not most things, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose. Even my sickness, even my suffering, even my sin, even my sorrow? Especially my sorrow. “Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart” (Ecc. 7:2).

What if everything you fear is part of God’s plan and good purpose to draw you closer to him? Because it is. What if every experience in every moment of every hour throughout every day of your life was planned by God and ordered so that nothing can ever happen that is truly, ultimately, eternally to your harm but only, always, and ultimately for your everlasting good? Because it is. What if the fear you have, which is perfectly natural, is an unspiritual, untrusting, and unnecessary response to circumstances which are completely in the control and under the oversight of the God who loves you more than you know and better than anyone in this world ever could? Because it is.

And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”

Now when we heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.”

(Acts 21:10-14)

I am not suggesting we should be indifferent to the dangers around us. I am not suggesting it is possible to be completely without worry and care. If it were possible, God would not have to command us so often in Scripture, “Do not worry; Do not be afraid,” and then continue to forgive us for disregarding what he told us not to do. I believe in taking reasonable precautions. I eat a healthy diet, exercise, lock my doors at night, and wear my seatbelt when I drive. I even wear a mask outside when the government tells me too. And none of these things will make any difference on the day God has appointed for me to die. I am not a fatalist. I believe that God works through means, and our choices are part of how he works, secondary causes that make a difference in daily outcomes. But it is his plan that governs the outcome. It is his will that guides my life, not my own.

Christians should not be reckless people, but we should live with reverent abandon. Reverent abandon recognizes that God is in control, and we can trust him with our wellbeing, our lives, our children, and our future. Reverent abandon recognizes that worry and fear are sinful, even if natural, and are responses of unbelief, not of faith. Reverent abandon recognizes that until God calls me home, I am bullet-proof, and at the hour he calls me home, no amount of preparation or protection can thwart his summons. Reverent abandon recognizes that nothing can happen to me except what he will use for the greater manifestation of his glory and the greater good of conforming me more fully to the image of his Son. He will use even the worst of experiences of my life, the most painful, the most harrowing, and the last experience that will end my life, to draw me closer to himself and more fully prepare me for glory. So what are you afraid of? COVID? Seriously?

Sing, pray, rejoice. Jesus is risen, death has been broken, and the saints of God have been justified once and forever. Love your wife, enjoy your kids, celebrate your grandkids, and pray for the great-grandkids (and great-great-grandkids) you will never know but who are already known to our Lord. Live your life with gratitude and gusto. Stop moping around like someone who has nothing to hope for beyond this life. You were not weaned on a dill pickle. You were re-created, cleansed, consecrated, adopted, and called to everlasting joy in Jesus Christ. The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness, but he did not make it because he needed a world--he made it for you. Enjoy God’s gifts and graces. Live fully, die faithfully, and then rejoice eternally. Maybe that headache is COVID, or maybe it is a brain tumor. Who knows? As a matter of fact, God does. If he is not worried about it, why should I? --JME

Unregenerate Humanity, Unconquerable Hope

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. 

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black.’

--J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, ch.2 “The Shadow of the Past”

As we continue to watch outrage and violence take over the streets of cities across the nation and now in other parts of the world, we might understandably wonder if the entire world has lost its mind. But we will not be surprised if we know the Bible’s description of unregenerate humanity. “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). Scripture is speaking self-evident truth when it declares (Rom. 3:10-18):

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

There is none who understands;

There is none who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside;

They have together become unprofitable;

There is none who does good, no, not one.

Their throat is an open tomb;

With their tongues they have practiced deceit;

The poison of asps is under their lips;

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Destruction and misery are in their ways;

And the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Violent, proud, hateful, slaves to lust, without fear of God. You don’t have to be a religious person to believe the Bible’s depiction--in fact, a number of religious people are making fools of themselves right now by denying the nature and wickedness of current events and outraged evildoers in order to sound “super-spiritual.” But conflict and controversy does not change one’s character and values; it reveals them. We are witnessing the societal consequences of abandoning a biblical view of creation, humanity, sin, and justice. We are also discovering how close unregenerate people are to barbarism and brutality, and how quickly they will become violent and demonic if the restraints imposed by the threat of law and order are withdrawn.

“Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved.” --G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Whitaker, 2013), 11

The breakdown of social order is not a blow to Christian faith; it is a confirmation of its doctrine and worldview. Our faith should not be rattled by seeing our neighbors acting like madmen; we should be humbled recognizing that, before the grace of God effectually intervened, we too were “by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Eph. 2:3). Of all people in this world, Christians ought to be able to observe events over the last four months with calm, contented composure. After all, we know man as he is, by creation, by sin, and by redemption. We know what man is capable of, and if we forgot, providence has given us an inconvenient reminder.

“After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

--Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon, 2006), 134

But we also know the sovereign God who created, sustains, and orders all things according to his secret purpose and ultimate good will.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev. 21:1-5)

God’s Spirit uses Scripture to make us wise, experience to make us humble, and the cross to make us hopeful. God’s word is true, even in its description and prediction of dark days and the worst aspects of humanity. But God’s promises are also true.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:30-31)

“Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Jos. 1:9)

He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:5b-6)

We do not profit by wishing for what might have been or wondering with anxiety what will be. We fix our eyes on Jesus, our hearts on glory, and our minds on the duty that lies before us. --JME

An Eternal Context

I have felt a bit overwhelmed lately. I suspect some of you can relate. It always seems there are more things to be done than there are hours in the day. We talk about setting priorities and focusing on what is important, but what if everything seems to be important… and on fire… at the same time? All we can do is do the best that we are able to do with the time, energy, wisdom, and resources available to us. And sometimes that still isn’t enough.

At such times it is good to remember the eternal perspective that ought to characterize our lives. One day Jesus will return. One day every one of us will stand before Him and give account for our lives. That is a sobering thing to contemplate. How many of the things that worry me, occupy me, and cause me stress today are going to be important on that day? Some of them will be important, obviously. My work as a husband, father, and minister will matter very much on that day. Whether I stayed close to Christ throughout my daily tasks instead of allowing them to draw me away from him will matter as well. But many of the specific items on my to-do list fade in significance when viewed in the light of eternity. It is not that they are unimportant; it is simply that their importance is relative and now placed in its proper context.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

(Isa. 26:3-4)

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 

(1Pet. 5:6-7)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb. 12:1-2)

May the Lord help us always to find rest and peace in Him. –JME

Fretting Over Evildoers

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
(Psalm 37:1-2)

Elijah has been asking to lead prayers with the family, and lately every prayer has included three requests: (1) that our nation will repent, (2) that our government will make good decisions, and (3) that daddy will not lose his job. His concern about these issues is so great that he has reminded us when we “forgot” to pray for our nation. Elijah put together his three-point prayer almost entirely from observing adult conversations between his mom and dad and brethren in the church. We have talked to our kids about current events and the potential implications for Christians and churches—though we have not discussed it with the boys in the same detail as with their older sisters—but very little time has been spent conversing about it, and we have not had the kind of “serious conversation” that might make them fearful or worried about the future. Nevertheless, Elijah has picked up enough of the larger conversation to be concerned, and so he is praying earnestly about it every day.

This morning I opened my Bible and came upon Psalm 37 once again. The Hebrew word translated fret in the ESV might better be translated be angry (cf. Gen. 4:5; 30:2; 31:6; 34:7). There is a proper, even necessary, anger the righteous should feel toward evil and evildoers. Jesus was angry when he saw religious hypocrisy and the abuse of the Temple (Mark. 3:1-5; 11:15-17). John the Baptist was stirred up by Herod’s immorality (Luke 3:19) as Paul was by Athens’ idolatry (Acts 17:16). The Bible commands us to hate evil (Psa. 97:10; Prov. 8:13; Amos 5:15); we cannot be passive towards it. But, as Psalm 37 affirms, our indignation toward evil should not unsettle our souls. We know evil will not ultimately triumph because Christ already won the victory (Col. 2:15).

We must balance righteous anger against sin and human sinfulness with the joy and peace that comes in trusting the Savior, Jesus Christ. We grieve because of the ungodliness around us, but to adapt Paul’s language concerning the dead, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. We know the victory is already won; we simply await the arrival of the conquering King. Each day we watch and pray, waiting and hoping with great anticipation for the coming of our Lord in glory.

At the same time, we must be faithful while we live in this fallen world. Our dreams of heaven and hope of the parousia must not take us from the responsibilities of discipleship and stewardship here and now. Paul addressed this kind of error in his letters to the Thessalonians, and he exhorted them “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1Thess. 4:11-12). We must be faithful to Christ today, even as we live in anticipation of that day when we see Him coming again to claim His own. –JME

Pursuing Holiness and Peace

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14)

Holiness and the pursuit of peace are not optional. Both will remain imperfect in this life. God’s people continue to sin and “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), and no matter how greatly we desire and work for peace, actual peace requires agreement between two parties, one of whom we cannot control (Rom. 12:18). Nevertheless, we are called to work for peace and to pursue holiness, and if we do not, we will not see the Lord. God’s people must be peacemakers, and they must endeavor to be holy as the Lord is holy.

Holiness and peace may often seem at odds with one another. How can we ever have peace if we enforce standards to which some will never agree? But how can we have holiness if we fail to enforce those standards revealed by God in His word? James reminds us “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable” (Jas. 3:17). There is a logical order and priority. Holiness must come first, but we must not neglect the pursuit of peace. We cannot compromise God’s standards in order to have peace, but we cannot disregard the mandate to pursue peace in our desire to be holy. God commands us to strive for both.

Working for holiness and peace requires us to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). We must speak the truth, God’s truth, all of it, not turning aside to the right or left, not adding to or taking from it. But we must speak it in love, with gentleness and humility, with a teachable spirit, with an attitude of grace and a sincere desire to edify others.

Too often one virtue is compromised in the name of the other. People insist on love and peace at the expense of truth and holiness, or they insist on truth and holiness at the expense of love and peace. But these are not items on a menu from which we are free to choose. They are divine mandates. Woe to us if we disregard or neglect either. Holiness and peace are both the byproducts of divine grace. We will not attain either without the inward and effectual work of God. So let us pray and labor for both and trust the God of grace to provide. -JME