Category — Suffering

Nothing excites me more than to hear someone say that they want to live all-out for the Lord Jesus. My pastoral heart moves toward them and Judy and I start pouring our lives into them.

There’s always some initial excitement and a lot of marvelous reports concerning God’s powerful movement in everyday life.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happening at work. I’ve only been praying for this guy for two days. Out of nowhere he said, ‘Tell me about your church.’”

“We had no idea how we would survive if we gave what we felt God was telling us to give to the church. But we did it. The next day my boss came in to tell me that she was so pleased with my work that he had decided to give me a promotion.”

Even as the reports bubble out I’m always praying for them because I know what’s coming.

God is going to test their faith.

They’ve been living at that precipice of the Christian life that God insists upon if we want to experience His power. The precipice of radical trust, that place we live where we know that if He doesn’t show up, we’re sunk.

Some shrink back from that radical edge of life to the safety of their comfort zone, and it’s tragic. Soon they will be wondering what happened, why their Christian life isn’t as exhilarating as it use to be.

Others will keep on trusting Him, pass the test, and move on to the live they always wanted, the life Jesus wanted them to live and their redeemed heart longs for.

How about you? Is God asking you to trust Him for something big? Something that intimidates you? Something that doesn’t make sense to your friends? Something that will make you look stupid if He doesn’t show up?

Do it!

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

God spoke to me in one of my most desperate moments. Everyone, including the best doctors in SoCal, was pretty sure I wouldn’t make it. My skin would not stay on my body, my kidneys had failed, and now my liver. Thousands of dollars of cutting edge drugs were pumping through a PICC line directly into my heart.

I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stay awake, couldn’t eat, and all bodily functions had stopped.

When I was aware of the world around me, all I could do was cry.

“So this is it,” I remember saying to the Lord at 2:00 in the morning from my lonely hospital room. “So this is how I’m going to leave this earth, hooked up to beeping machines and incapable of even praying much.”

And then the Lord said, “Ed, you’re as alive today as anybody!”

It was a critical moment, a tipping point in my life. That’s all He said, but His Spirit continued to bring thoughts of hope to my mind.

“That’s right, and as long as I’m here, I might as well serve Jesus with all my heart. Tomorrow someone who’s perfectly healthy is going to die in an accident, someone else is going to drop dead from a heart attack. All over this city people will wake up in the morning not knowing that this is their last day. And who knows, I may even be here tomorrow, and the next, and the next…”

That was almost ten years ago. Yesterday I turned sixty.

The next day turned into the next week, the next month, and the next year. And I’m still as alive today as anyone.

I can’t know what fears or struggles may be causing you to lose hope in tomorrow, but I do know this: Jesus promised to take care of tomorrow, all the assignments that are your responsibility are for today.

So serve Him with all your might!

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:34

I’ve been teaching Psalm 138:8 for over three decades and telling the story of how that wonderful sentence, “The Lord will accomplish what concerns me,” became our life verse. It was a dramatic moment in 1978 when a young Lieutenant Ed Underwood thought he was saying goodbye to his bride and his little family. We thought I was marching to war from Ansbach, Germany and leaving them behind to take care of themselves as the fury of the Soviet Empire rained down on them.

We didn’t go to war, but that was the night Psalm 138:8 became our life verse.

Every time I preach that sermon, people ask me to help them find their life verse. My answer is always the same, “You don’t find your life verse; your life verse finds you.”

Our life verse found us through Judy’s unshakeable faith on that night when we thought our worst fears were coming true. Like David, she had lived a life of dependence on her God:

David’s lifelong experience with answered prayer gave him confidence in his God (Psalm 138:1-3). My Judy had trusted her Jesus through the trials of a little girl losing her daddy and watching her mommy lose herself to alcohol. Nobody had to tell Judy on that night that her God answered prayer; He had proved Himself to her many times. Her lifestyle of dependent prayer “made her bold with strength in her soul” (v 3).

David’s lifelong expectation that his God would be praised for regarding the lowly gave him confidence in His God (Psalm 138:4-6). My Judy had personal experience with a God who kept His eye on a little almost-orphaned little girl who cried out to Him on the night her mother abandoned their family. A Presbyterian pastor’s kindness invited these three homeless children into his home while her mother recovered from the crisis. Her lifestyle of trusting Him in spite of her circumstances had convinced her that “though her Lord is exalted, yet He regards the lowly” (v 6).

So, on the night when our family was “walking in the midst of trouble,” my Judy knew “that He would revive us…that His right hand would save us…and that He would accomplish what concerns us” (vv7-8).

You want a life verse? Then live a life of dependence on your God, and when your worst fears come true, I believe your life verse will find you!”

“The Lord will accomplish what concerns me” (Psalm 138:8, NASB).

Before I almost died ten years ago, Christians who actually asked God for something in faith and expected Him to answer made me feel uncomfortable. Like most Christians, my role had always been to pray for others who may have lost perspective in a tragedy.

But on that day I realized the enormous difference between standing at someone’s deathbed and lying in your own.

Stop telling God what He already knows! I wanted to shout. Look at my wife, my children. I’m dying and you’re preaching on the sovereignty of God? Somebody ask Him for something. There’s not enough faith in this room to heal a bunny rabbit!

Time was running out.

Today our family returns to this desperate place of prayer. My son-in-law, David Newkirk lies in a hospital bed in Pasadena, and he is very, very sick with Gillian Barre Syndrome. An excerpt from my book, When God Breaks Your Heart, summarizes our feelings, our request, and the man who taught us how to pray dangerous prayers of faith:

Just then our elders walked into the room. Even they were shaken by the tortured figure in the bed that eerily resembled their pastor.

Charlie White, mentor to most of us in the room and friend to all, taught us all a lesson in prayer at that moment. Leaning across my bed like a prophet of old, this dear brother cried out to His God:

Father, we are frail and foolish. There is little here we comprehend. But we remember Your love for us and hear the words of Your Son who taught us to pray. He promised us You would listen to our prayers and that He would remind You that we are weak. He told us to pray with the faith of a mustard seed, to believe that You are able to answer our prayers. He told us that with You all things are possible. And so, our Father, we come now to Your throne of grace with this one request: Please heal our pastor. O Lord, we love him and do not want him to die. There is so much to do. Our church needs him; his family needs Him. Please let him live. We beg You, in Jesus’ name.

And then, his own private appeal: “Lord, I love Ed. Please let this boy live and serve. Amen.”

The fear and doubt drained from my heart as this old saint and retired pastor spoke his mighty prayer. His bold words gave us hope. His faith kindled a fire of courageous faith that spread around the world. By the next day, over ten thousand Christians were repeating Charlie’s simple request: Please let Ed live and serve.

There’s a young man I love more than life, my Celia’s David. Yesterday he asked her to tell people to just pray for healing, and “not all that other stuff.”

I know how he feels.

Please kneel with Celia, Judy, and me at the throne of grace and beg our Father in heaven: “Please heal David Newkirk.”

If you believe, you will see the glory of God (John 11:40).

Desperate Prayer

Most of you who read these Tipping Points know that I have been living with a deadly disease for some time now. I wrote an entire book, When God Breaks Your Heart, detailing my journey. When I finished the book, I felt like I had said it all.

I’m discovering that there are days that I just have to tell you one more thing. Today is one of those days.

It was April in 2000 when I wrote this desperate prayer and accompanying plea from Scripture in my journal:

“Father, please give me ministry in my grandchildren’s lives.” Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. (Psalm 90: 16)

If you knew me back then or you’ve read the book, you know how bold that request was. I had nearly died in March and had not improved much since. The doctors were suspecting lymphoma, and following test after test, what they called my “numbers” refused to turn around.

I remember the day I wrote those sentences in my blood-stained journal vividly. Tears flowed as I begged God to let me have some influence in my grandchildren’s lives. Back then I was only thinking of two—Jackson and Megan.

Great Answer!

I’m writing these words from my son’s home in Atlanta, where we just greeted Amelia Joy, grandchild number 6 who joins Jackson, Megan, Camryn, Mary, and Wyatt. This spring number 7—Zachary James—is scheduled to show up.

Last Saturday, the 10th of January 2009, I spent the day with Amelia’s older sister and brother, Mary, and Wyatt. I watched Mary’s skating lessons and Wyatt’s hockey practice. I was vaguely aware of some other children on the ice, but my heart glued my attention to one little twirling princess and one little bruiser in pads.

On the way home, Wyatt put his little arms around my neck and shouted, “We’re best pals, Papa!”

The Spirit reminded me one more time about the power of prayer and the comfort of being loved by a God who is perfectly reliable and strong.

I don’t know what’s breaking your heart today, but I suspect something is.

God knows, and He loves it when you ask Him for big things. You never know, He might just say yes.

Just like He did for me.

Thank you, Father, for hearing my desperate prayer. And for that nearly-nine-years-later reminder from a blue-eyed little hockey star that You, not my doctors, number my days.