As a younger pastor I have vivid memories of one of my first ministries. My wife and I were appointed to a little church in Northern Michigan. For Shanais, my wife, having lived in the Upper Peninsula for a majority of her life, it was like going home. For me it was this new adventure, with new places to discover. One of the very first church members that we met was Arnold. He was an elder in the church but in recent years he was suffering from an advanced form of cancer that was slowly causing him to waste away.
I recall visiting Arnold in his home, a humble structure with walls painted the color of amaranthine, which coincidentally I looked up later and discovered the name is an ancient Greek word named after a fictional flower which means ‘unfading’. I sat there in a brown fabric armchair as Arnold, with sunken, hollowed eyes, though still alight and sparkling azure shared with me his confident faith in Jesus. Despite the pain of mouth sores, a side effect of his chemotherapy, he spoke of his conversion as a teenage boy, of how he loved his children and how he would soon see Jesus in Heaven.
Arnold wasn’t a theologian, and he wasn’t well education but the roots of his faith ran much deeper than a four year degree. Often he would surprise me with his overpowering desire for others to know this seemingly unplumbed relationship that he had with his Savior. He would share with me the words he felt the Holy Spirit was saying to him about the church and those who had strayed from their faith. Despite his own terminal situation, often times he seemed more concerned about his children’s faith journey than he did with his constant pain.
Towards the end, and one of my last visits with Arnold, when he was still conscious and verbal, he could only whisper between gasps of breath. I once heard him say, “It is well with my soul.” He was quoting the song by the same name written by Horatio Spafford, one of his favorite songs. There were long moments of uncomfortable silence as I just sat there with him. A seminary school degree and ordination never truly prepares you for these closing moments in one’s life. These are sacred spaces where the veil between this world and the next are very thin, and Heaven anticipated Arnold’s admittance. There is something to be said of the ministry of silence and in the ‘being present’ as if to bear witness to the ending of that mortal coil.
At another moment Arnold whispered, “Lord, I’m ready!” And, in those brief few months of knowing him, I can say that I shed a few tears knowing his time was close. Those tears mixed both with sorrow in the spaces he would soon leave behind and in joy that his suffering, which was bone deep and horrible, would be finally over with. Cancer, like all of life’s afflictions, is a ghastly blight to behold let alone endure. Some find victory over it and survive their ordeal, while others find victory through the ultimate healing and survive in the eternal celebration.
My phone rang early one morning and I receive the news that Arnold’s suffering had ended. In moments like these, some use phrases about losing the battles, or someone quietly slipped away, and I’ve even heard the expression ‘they gave up the ghost’. None of those expressions rang true in the passing of Arnold. He had not lost his battle. Cancer was just the conduit by which he had entered his eternal reward. He walked with Jesus before and during the cancer and now his victory over death was fully realized.
Thinking back to the color of amaranthine which coated the walls of Arnold’s home, the joy and love he had for his Savior truly was unfading and those visits with him in his final days left a mark on my soul which I will carry for the rest of my life.
Life has meaning, beloved. There is victory in it, given to us by our Creator who made a way for us to experience His Kingdom. Life transcends the seen and the mystery of the unseen known beyond that veil that separates this life and the next.
Jesus desires for relationship with us.
How is your faith journey?
I once heard the story of a captain of a ship whose vessel had run aground and was in the process of sinking. Many people were frantically evacuating on lifeboats, while there were still who were trapped below. A noble captain would make every effort to save everyone, even to the point of one’s own life; but this captain discarded all sense of duty and ethics by abandoning his own ship, leaving the rest of the passengers to fend for themselves, many perished for lack of rescue.
Christ called not the qualified, but he qualified the called. We don’t need to wait for that degree to be completed before we commit to His mission. We don’t need to wait until we are older before we commit to His mission, nor should we delay for any other reason!! The God of Abraham and Moses and David, still calls us to go. The God the disciples served still calls us to go into all the world. Our mission hasn’t changed, but has our priorities? Have we neglected our first love? Have we become distracted by other missions and other “services” that really have nothing to do with His mission? If so, perhaps it’s time to discard those distractions…and once again follow Him.
A vast majority of our Generals have been Westerners. I am not saying this as an incendiary comment, it is simply fact. The top percentage of our international leaders are those who hale from the Americas, Australia and the United Kingdom, save for a few. This is not to say that there are not leaders who come from other regions in the world, but by and large most are Westerners. This is where a majority of the Army’s funds come from, where world services support is raised. I do not presume to know much of the politics in our army, but I do know that prosperous territories generally have a larger, albeit unspoken, sway to how the army operates. The power of the resource can often dictate the direction in which those resources are utilized in the world for the purpose of the army. Thus, if this was to be a “safe” election at High Council, the election choice could follow suit of so many other past Generals in terms of nationality and region of origin.
His only Son dying in our place.
the eyes of this zealot that it seared him blind. Saul was then confronted by Christ himself. He was forced to answer the question of why he had been persecuting God’s Son – the Messiah. Only later, when the scales had fallen from his eyes and he began a new mission – to preach Christ to the world, did he truly begin to live. He had been eclipsed you see (pun intended). Paul – had been eclipsed by the Son and he would never be the same again. From that point on he had one purpose, one mission, one life and that life was Christ’s alone! He would pour out himself upon others as a fragrant offering to God. He would invest himself in the lives of new believers…even from a prison cell hundreds of miles away.
Has the Son Eclipsed our lives? This is what Holiness looks like – us dying to our old sinful selves and living for Christ alone – through the amazing power of the Holy Spirit!!
Pastor's Ponderings 