Father Knows Best

I've been waiting for the question that hasn't come. But it will, I'm sure of it.

"Scott, aren't you even a tad jealous that Kevin Everett will likely retrieve all his bodily functions and mobility after suffering a potentially grave spinal cord injury?"

This is going to sound weird, I know, but Kevin should be jealous of me. Hear me out. Kevin Everett is the tight end for the Buffalo Bills who sustained a near-crippling injury while making a tackle in Sunday's NFL season opener. He launched at his opponent, driving his helmet into the player's chest and immediately crumpled to the ground. Early indications were that he would be paralyzed for life, his career in football over in seconds. Twenty-four hours later we were hearing he was voluntarily moving his arms and legs and his doctors were hopeful even of a full recovery and return to normal life.

Two roads, he and I, with two patently different outcomes.

When I blew a gust of relieved air with the rest of America, I steeled my mind on the truth of God's sovereignty. One man's miracle is another man's blessing. Sure, the enemy was there with his typical suggestions: "...it's not fair, is it, Scott? You didn't get the same break, did you? God is so cruel! I've been listening to your prayers for your own healing for almost 26 years now...and what? Nothing. Still stuck in that wheelchair! And you're a, what, preacher of the Gospel? You'd think your Father would look out for you..."

But I sit here, clacking away at these keys, a blessed man!

(Nice try, Slewfoot.)

The fact I am in a wheelchair does not mean I have not been healed. Oh, I have, believe me! My paralysis is a pathway to glory and I am resting in the knowledge that my Maker has set me apart for a privileged season in His sun. He's given me a break. You want to know Me? Your brokenness is the essential way. The same Apostle who said his own suffering was working for him an eternal weight of glory, said that in the life to come some will shine like the sun, some like the moon and others like the stars in glory. I'm after the former.

I am thrilled for Mr. Everett but I wouldn't trade my journey for anything. Years ago I picked up a copy of Jerry Bridges' Trusting God Even When Life Hurts and found in its pages the answer to my soul's questions and even now, years later, find myself referring to its basic tenets time and again. Mr. Bridges says that God is sovereign, meaning He can do whatever He wants because He is God. He says He is also all-wise and His children can draw comfort from the fact that while God can do whatever He wants, He knows exactly what He is doing. Everything He does has purpose. The third truth pouring from its pages is that God is all-loving. Ah, this is the most comforting unguent of all! While God does as He chooses, He always does it in view of His own glory, and always, always, for our eternal good.

This is the God of my life and I am determined to follow Him through every vale of sorrow, every mile of struggle, and every season of loss and despair. I can do this because the broken road is the blessed road and my Savior walks it with me. Had feeling been restored to me on October 3, 1981 (the day "after") and the next 26 years been "normal" for me, I have some doubt whether I would have known the Lord as intimately as I do tonight. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I leave even that to His sovereignty.

I praise the God who sits on the circle of the earth, over those who walk and those who don't. Over those who succumb to disease and those who get well. Over those who serve Him and those who shake their fists at Him. Makes no difference. He is Lord.

One last thing. There was a time when I could sit down (well, of course I'd be sitting!) and write song after song. Interesting that it was in the early years of my disability and I probably wrote three dozen tunes. One of the songs that flowed out of my belly pretty much sums up how I feel about these matters. Mind you, the lyrics were written over 25 years ago and they show some youth, but they are just as real for me today as they were in the early 80's. To the praise of His glorious grace!

HE KNOWS WHAT'S BEST FOR ME

I know I can't walk around and at times it gets me down
But He knows and I'm kept by Jesus' love
There's so many things I'd like to do
Run a race and win one too
But He knows and that's enough for me

He knows how much my spirit can stand
He's so concerned for my good
He is so wise and He hears all my cries
He knows what's best for me

Sometimes it's hard to pray when He seems so far away
But He's there and He's listening to my heart
He reaches down in love
From His heavenly throne above
'Cause He knows what I need the very most

And when my life is done
And my crown of life is won
Then I'll know my pain was worth it all...

It's my guess that the question I'm still waiting for won't come after you read this. Oh, one more thing. Please don't think I am being haughty and patting myself on the back. The truest thing I know is this: none of this comes from me. Only God could take a broken man's life and give it meaning and rhyme.

And Father knows best.

Psalm Umpteen Hundred Thousand Thousandth and One

My Father, You reign. You are Victor and Victorious. You sit glorious in the heavenlies over all. Son of God, You sit enthroned at the right Hand of the Father until He makes Your enemies His footstool.

Hallelujah! There is no end to Your Kingdom! Blessing and honor and glory be unto You forever! You have ripped us from the lair of the enemy and set us free. You have made a place at the King’s Table for Your children who turn to You and bow to Your reign.

Thank you, Mighty One, for conquering the devil and his angels and death and the grave…and for finishing the work so that Your Name would be exalted.

There is no one like You, no one. No god is like You and I call You my God! My name is engraved in the palms of Your Hand and You call me by name.

My soul is satisfied, well satisfied, with You, and You Shephered me faithfully while the enemy surrounds me and waits for my fall. But I am held tightly to Your chest. Your grace keeps me from wanting to pull away and walk from Your care. I am secure against Your breast and I want it to be so! This, too, is grace! I never want to wander from You, my Lord, for what is there for me apart from You?

This my soul knows right well! In You is Life and joy evermore. There is a path that seems laden with lasting delights for stubborn, earthly man but it leads to emptiness and despair. Not for me! Oh, no! And not for all those whose delight is ever and only for You.

(Selah)

Though the domain of darkness imposes its strength and will, all the flexing of its muscle is powerless against the Kingdom of my God, Kingdom of Light, Kingdom without end. You broke into the strong man’s fortress, overcame and humiliated him with Your infinite power and released his captives so they might glorify the Great God’s Name throughout eternity as Your trophies of grace.

Praise You! I laud and applaud You!

This is my freedom song and You are its Author. It is my pleasure and honor to sing it back to You with every breath I have—in this world and the next.

Heaven, tune your instruments! Stretch out to receive the praise songs of the ‘captives-no-more’! Lord, receive Your glory! Your people want to raise You with their praises!
All who are redeemed, come before the Lord with your freedom song. Let us move hell to raise howls of anguish with our voices!

Glory, glory, glory to Your Name, O Eternal God! Blessing and honor and glory be unto Your Name forever.

Amen.

A Little More Gray...A Little Less Dead

“He must increase; I must be being decreased.”–John the Plunger, 1st century

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”–Paul, mid-1st century

“Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day.”–2 Corinthians 4:16, Amplified

The math is easy. Two thousand and seven minus nineteen hundred and sixty equals forty-seven. I did that without using my fingers, a calculator or calendars. When you get to be my age, you hesitate a little longer when someone asks how old you are. In a few years I’ll hesitate when someone asks my name but so far I’m good on that front.

Today I turned 47.

I hopped in the van this morning, headed for some TWG (Time With God) and as I locked my wheelchair into the driver’s side, I stole a quick glance into the rearview mirror. It may have been the way the sunlight highlighted the right side of my head but I had to do a double-take at the increased number of silvery strands that reflected back at me. Did it bother me? No, not one bit because I quickly referenced in my noggin the times that gray hair is meant to be a good thing in the Bible, even desirable.

Now, balding? That’s another matter altogether. I’ve moved from a hair brush to just moving some hairs around with my fingers. Soon I’ll just need a washrag. God is pretty much silent on the subject, too. Some people’s hair he numbers. Others (like me), He puts an asterisk beside.

(Total is pending.)

In celebration of this auspicious day in my life, come along with me into the courts and inner chamber of the Maker of Life. After my two older sisters, my Mom suffered an unfortunate miscarriage. Had that child been born, I may not be here today. I’m SO glad to be alive! Even though I can squint and see fifty, and though flecks of gray are gaining momentum, I rejoiced today that with each passing year, I’m a little less ’dead’. I’m so tired of carrying about this body of death that every turn of the calendar means I’m getting that much closer to putting on immortality!

Please indulge me for yet another entry into my prayer journal:

My Father, God and King,

This is the life! Early Fall, temperatures are becoming more civil…the color of the world even seems to have changed into richer tones…and I’m here with You on my birthday, looking forward to Your Presence to hold me and reveal more riches and the richness of Your grace and Life. Show up, Lord! Speak to me. Let me hear from Your Throne and heart; I invite You to tarry with me here this while. Walk with me and expound Truth to my ears and heart that I might gain a fuller revelation of the Son of God and may my heart BURN—burn on and burn out—for You.

Overwhelm me with waves of mercy, grace following grace, glory to glory and faith to faith. Baptize me in Your deep, deep waters and bury me in them that I might rise in power with You. O God! Fill me to fullness! Complete me! Finish Your work in me! May Christ be fully formed in me…pull me into Yourself that I might come to the complete measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ with no vestige left of Scott-the-old-man. I want You. I long for You. I can even say in this moment that my soul aches for You—please don’t let this ache go away! Bubble up through me, O Living Water! Fill me up to overflowing. I worship You.

My…

Faithful God.
Wonderful Friend.
Caring Shepherd.
Loving Companion.
Patient Counselor.
Ever-present Helper.
Constant Hope.
Loyal Defender.

I feel deep pools rising up within me. Look at me when Your eyes look to and from on the earth because I’m raising my hand so You can spot me. I’m here, looking at You, beholding You. Come to me, O One Who reigns! I owe my whole life to You and bathe in Your grace. Take me deep into Your waters but as they rise to find their level, raise me with them.

I’m not after counterfeit and make-believe or manufactured holiness or any ‘virtual’ oasis in this desert. I want You to reign in me and through me. I can’t wait for the day when Your Kingdom truly comes in all its fullness to me and completely shatters and displaces all the flesh and mortar kingdoms of my heart. I long for the day when You reign supreme and there is no rebellion, hypocrisy or conditional love in me. I cry for the day when Your radiance is so seen in me that “I” become transparent—yea, removed—that all that is seen is divine glory, and the fragrance of Christ so permeates me that all stench is removed. When LOVE pours out of me in measures only known in Heaven.

Thank You for life!

Thank You for bringing me into existence that I might feel Your Touch, love and redeeming grace. Thank You for allowing me to be “in the story” and for giving me a place in it where I can demonstrate Your Life and not be stumbling around in the darkness along with the whole of humanity. Praise You! I love living and today is an opportunity for me to tell it to my heart…
I’m a little more gray today but a little less ‘dead’, too. Each passing year gets me closer to removing entirely this body of death and to be fitted for the garment You are tailoring for me. I only ask for fabric that breathes, that is porous enough to more readily, quickly and noticeably display Your glory abundantly throughout eternity…“Not unto me, O Lord. Not unto me. But to Your Name I give the glory—“ (Ps 115:1)

A little more gray. A little less dead.

Today, as I look forward from this place in the time I have left, I recommit myself to these things:

· A little more death, a little less me
· A little more praise, a little less indifference
· A little more surrender, a little less selfishness
· A little more patience, a little less judgment
· A little more intention, a little less waste
· A little more passion, a little less paralysis
· A little more glory, a little less relevance
· A little more love, a little less self-protection
· A little more fasting, a little less indulgence
· A little more worship, a little less preoccupation
· A little more pilgrimage, a little less Egypt
· A little more faith, a little less rationalism
· A little more poor, a little less rich
· A little more listening, a little less noise
· A little more God, a little less theology
· A little more risk, a little less resignation

Thank You for my life, Lord. It’s Yours. Thank You for Your Life, Lord. It’s mine.

Giver of every breath I breathe

Author of all eternity

Giver of every perfect thing

To You be the glory

Maker of Heaven and earth

No one can comprehend Your worth

King over all the universe

To You be the glory

And I am alive because I’m alive in You

It’s all because of Jesus I’m alive

It’s all because of the blood of Jesus Christ

That covers me and raised this dead man’s life

It’s all because of Jesus I’m alive

–“It’s All Because of Jesus”

The Altar and the Door, Casting Crowns

What about you? What do you need a ‘little’ more of? A ‘little’ less of?