Blog Archives
Having the Right Perspective
I’ve discovered how essential it is to keep things in perspective in order to maintain hope when you’re in the midst of a trial. The first and most important lesson I learned was focusing on what I have and not on what I’ve lost.
Our family before I was diagnosed with ALS. (Mary still had BIG hair).
Perspective: the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance. (Webster’s Dictionary)
I know of many people close to my age, even some close friends, who have died of ALS, Cancer and other diseases or were killed in tragic accidents. These moms and dads have missed being able see their children growing up. They weren’t there to take pictures before prom, to watch with pride as their child graduated from high school and/or college or to witness their son or daughter’s wedding.
I force myself to think about these friends and acquaintances when I begin feeling depressed about my inability to fully participate in this thing we call life. At times like last year when my daughter got married, and I was unable to walk her down the aisle or dance with her at the reception. During difficult times like this, I make a conscious effort to think about some of these people that are no longer with us; people like my friend Rick, who died of Cancer, leaving a wife and two teenage sons. I think about another blogger named Patrick, who died of ALS in December leaving a wife and a teenage son and daughter. Sadly, Rick and Patrick won’t get the opportunity to watch with pride as their children go through graduations, weddings and other landmark events in their lives.
I think about these people every time I’m tempted to complain or get depressed about my situation. I ask myself what they’d say to me if I was to complain about things like not being able to walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Would they tell me that I should be grateful for just getting to be there to watch as she walked down the aisle? Of course, Rick, Patrick and the others have gone on to heaven so I don’t know what they might say to me. But I know they would be right if they were able to tell me to be grateful that I was able to be there for all the events that they’ve missed and will miss. In a sense, I feel that I owe them; that, if for no other reason, I must be grateful for their sake.
Our son-in-law and daughters (January, 2012).
I know it’s strange for me to imagine what deceased people might say to me (to give me the proper perspective), but it works for me and, regardless of the trial that you find yourself in, we all must find ways of coping; ways of changing our perspective and attitude – ways of convincing ourselves that our life isn’t so bad after all.
“…I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” (Philippians 4:11)
The aim of every Christian should be learning to be content in the good times and in the bad times. But, for those that hope in God, contentment does not mean we stop believing for better days ahead; it just means we’re grateful for today and that we’re going to live it to the full – even if we have to live today in a wheelchair!
“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” (Romans 8:24-25)
The Greatest Event in History!
What would your answer be if you were asked to name the greatest event in the history of the world?
I suspect that your answer would depend on your overall worldview. A Christian, who fully understands the Gospel message, would say that the resurrection of Christ was the greatest event in history. But I don’t think any non-Christians would agree with that answer. Regardless of what their religious or ideological beliefs might be, all non-Christians have one thing in common; they don’t believe in the resurrection of Christ.
Lee Strobel has been a follower of Christ and a well-known Christian apologist for over 30 years. Before becoming a Christian, Lee was an award-winning investigative journalist and the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. He was also a self-professed “drunk” and an “angry atheist.” His wife, Leslie, was agnostic when they married, but later became a Christian. Leslie’s conversion to Christianity infuriated Lee to the point that he was considering a divorce.
Lee wanted the agnostic Leslie back so he devised a plan; he reasoned that if he could prove to Leslie that Christianity wasn’t true, she’d ditch her newfound faith and her new friends from church and return to her agnosticism. As an investigative journalist and Yale-educated lawyer, Lee was qualified to gather the evidence and also prosecute his case against Christianity. He rightly concluded that to successfully prove (to Leslie and the world) that Christianity was based on myths and superstition, the only thing he had to demonstrate was that the resurrection of Christ never occurred.
Lee took a two year leave of absence from his job at the Tribune and began traveling all over the world interviewing experts in many different fields. As many of you know, Lee’s research is now compiled in his best-selling book, The Case for Christ. Through his research, Lee became a firm believer in the resurrection of Christ and found that it took more faith for him to maintain his atheism than it did for him to commit to following Christ.
As Lee says, when you accept the resurrection of Christ as a historical fact, it leads to hope and transformation – “It gives me hope that as Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so I will someday be too. It gives me confidence in the teachings of Jesus, that I can apply them to my life, that they’ll make a difference in my life. They’re not just the teachings of a bright and loving individual; they’re the teachings of the Son of God himself. It means to me that Jesus deserves my worship and my allegiance. It also means that I want to spend my life helping other people see the evidence for the resurrection, that they too may experience what I’ve experienced, which is a 180-degree life change from my days as an atheist, to my days as a Christian.”
Jesus wasn’t merely resurrected; Jesus IS the resurrection! Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
At the top of my blog, I have a page titled Christian? For two-thousand years the verses on this page have been used to explain what committing one’s life to following Christ entails. The final and key verses are the following – “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)
The resurrection of Christ is the greatest event in the history of the world!
HAPPY EASTER!
“It is Finished!”
Sweating drops of blood, in anguish I prayed,
While friends sleep in the cool of the night’s shade,
A crowd, a commotion; with a kiss I am betrayed,
Scorn and ridicule; with a crown of thorns and a royal robe I am arrayed,
With the shards of a crude whip my body is beaten and flayed,
“CRUCIFY HIM” came the verdict of the angry brigade,
Hands and feet nailed to a cross, as a trophy I was displayed,
“It is finished!” In a dark tomb my body was laid,
Hell and death defeated; for you the price of sin I paid!
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
A Temptation I Can Relate To
Do you ever feel as if your Facebook friends have more exciting lives than yours; that by comparison your life is boring?
I recently read about a study, which concluded that Facebook and other social networking sites are leading many users to feel “dissatisfied with their lives.” The study found that, “Witnessing friends’ vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness.” Additionally, some people admitted that Facebook caused them to feel “frustrated or angry.”
Covet: To desire what belongs to another. (Webster’s Dictionary)
As someone who rarely leaves home, I can relate to this. If it wasn’t for the Discovery Channel and the Travel Channel, I’d never even have imaginary adventures or vacations. When ALS forced me to quit work and began limiting my ability to travel, I quickly figured out just how dangerous and depressing coveting (the health and lifestyle of others) could be. Thankfully, with God’s help, I’ve moved beyond that temptation and am now genuinely happy when I see family and friends enjoying the health and wealth that God has blessed them with.
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)
Thankfully, a few years after being diagnosed with ALS, I figured out that one of the problems with jealousy, or what the Bible calls covetousness, is that it keeps you from truly Rejoicing with those who rejoice” and, when you’re having a pity party, it’s also impossible to genuinely empathize with others – we cannot “weep with those who weep” because they’re stealing the spotlight that we think should be on us.
If you are one of the 33 percent of Facebook users that gets jealous when you read posts about your friends successes or see pictures of their fun vacations etc, ask yourself if you would be happy if none of your friends had any successes and never took vacations. I hope, like me, that’s the last thing you would want. In fact, to be honest, I only get frustrated with able-bodied couch potatoes; if I could speak I’d tell them to get up and go enjoy their life – like my mom used to tell me when, as a teenager, I was sitting on the couch watching Gilligan’s Island on a beautiful summer afternoon. If medical science ever makes it possible to do head transplants, watch out couch potatoes – I know of a lot of people with ALS and other disabilities that would make good use of your sedentary bodies.
The problem with sites like Facebook is that most people only post the highlights of the lives; they post pictures of their vacations, but rarely do they post pictures of themselves working. Mary’s sister is an executive with a large airline and for several years she would take our girls on exotic summer vacations; fun places like resorts in the Caribbean and Cabo San Lucas or the mountains of Colorado. Because their Aunt Kathy lives far away in another city, these trips were usually the only time the girls got to spend with her; they never saw her coming home exhausted after one of her frequent long days at work. Like our girls only seeing the good part of Aunt Kathy’s life, I think that Facebook, and the Internet in general, can give us a distorted view of reality.
You cannot be grateful for what you have when you’re focusing on what you desire.
“Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not steal,” seem to get all the press these days, but “Thou shalt not covet” is still one of the Ten Commandments.
Don’t give up!
After reading some of the comments from my last post (“More than just a Dream”), I’m afraid that I might have left the impression that my only hope (for physical healing) is in the next life. If I believed heaven was my only hope for healing, I probably would have checked out years ago. Waiting (for heaven) to be healed is merely my backup plan; it’s my Plan B. Whether it’s through medical science or a miracle from God, even after 16 years with ALS, I’m still hoping for the best outcome here on earth. This is what I believe for others too, regardless of the severity of their trial.
I realize how crazy it sounds for someone who has received a diagnosis of ALS to be hoping for a complete recovery. I’m not naïve; I’ve known so many good Christian people who have died of this and other insidious diseases like Cancer, Heart Disease and Lupus. And I realize that, medically speaking, ALS is 100 percent fatal. Well, technically that’s not true; there are medically documented cases of people being miraculously healed of ALS and even the ALS Association says, “There are people in whom ALS has stopped progressing and a small number of people in whom the symptoms of ALS reversed.” So maybe it’s only like 99.9 percent fatal – I choose to believe for that one tenth of one percent chance.
As I typed that, a scene from the movie Dumb and Dumber came to my mind (don’t judge me). In this scene, one of the “dumb guy’s” named “Lloyd,” who’s in love with a beautiful and sophisticated character named “Mary,” is asking her what the chances of them ending up together are:
Lloyd: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me… ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that’s difficult to say. I mean, we don’t really…
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I’d say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you’re telling me there’s a chance… *YEAH!*
Maybe some of you reading this think I’m like Lloyd for being excited about a one in a million chance of being healed of ALS. Maybe you’re thinking that I shouldn’t encourage people to hold onto “false hope.” I’m definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m not “Lloyd” either; I’ve been contemplating this for over 16 years and here are some of my conclusions:
- Miracles by definition defy all natural laws – including statistical probabilities.
- For the 16+ years of this trial, God has sustained us with miracle after miracle; I don’t think I have the right, nor do I think that I’m qualified to categorize certain miracles as “big” and others as “small.”
- There’s no such thing as “false hope” when you’re looking to the “God of hope.”
- Jesus still heals; He “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Heb13:8)
- “God doesn’t show partiality.” (Acts 10:34)
- “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.” (Luke 18:27)
- I would rather die looking for a miracle than live not believing in them.
In Daniel chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar demanded that the Jews bow down and worship his god. All those that refused to bow would be thrown into the furnace that the Babylonians used to make bricks. As most people know, three young Jewish men refused to bow and this is what they told the king; “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
For me, this is more than a great example of strong faith; I believe this is a pattern of faith that all Christians should emulate regardless of challenges we might be facing. We can proclaim that, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from [insert your trial here]. BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT… we are not going to serve…” doubt, fear, worry, hopelessness or anything else that destroys faith, hope, joy and peace!
Unshakable Hope 