This post is part two in a series on God’s Sovereignty. If you have not read part one, please see Overcoming Adversity 101: The Sovereignty of God, Part 1. The question of alternating shifts of power is first addressed there.

Do God and Satan alternate shifts of controlling the world? It often seems like Satan has punched in as manager of the world and God is never coming back from His break. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Psalm 103:19 establishes a foundational fact:

“The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom [his sovereignty] rules over all.” Psalm 103:19

God is in control of all world events – large and small. If a hardship touches our lives, it is because God has allowed it. It has been filtered through His fingers of love.

“What about hurtful actions of other people?” you ask. “What about pure evil? Is God the source of it? How can He be sovereign over it – how can He govern it – and not be the source of it? It seems that one of two scenarios occur. Either, 1) God is in control; and therefore, when evil, tragic events occur, He is the source of them. Or 2) when people perpetrate such evil, Satan is in control of world events and God has no choice in the matter.”

Actually, neither scenario is correct. God oversees people’s sinful actions, but He is not the source of them.  He can allow events to take place where evil plays a role — without being the source of the evil.

God doesn’t originate everything He permits. He doesn’t put evil in anyone’s heart.  Such evil is the result of man’s innate evil desires and Satan’s fury.  Even when suffering involves the work of the devil, Satan can only do what God allows.

Job

Job’s story clearly illustrates this. Job had everything he could desire – money, land, possessions and family. He was a man of great standing – the “greatest man among all the people of the East,” the Bible says.

One day the angels came before God’s throne, and Satan came along with them. God asked Satan,

“Have you noticed my friend Job? There is no one quite like him—honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil.” Satan retorted, “So do you think Job does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why, no one ever had it so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does—he can’t lose!

But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He’d curse you right to your face, that’s what.

God replied, We’ll see. Go ahead—do what you want with all that is his. Just don’t hurt him” (Job 1:6-12).

On the heels of this conversation came a tragic day for Job. A servant rushed to Job with terrible news, “Sabean bandits stole the oxen and donkeys and killed the field hands.” A second messenger ran in, “Bolts of lightning [probably igniting brush fire] struck the sheep and the shepherds and fried them—burned to a crisp.” Before he finished speaking, footsteps of another running messenger could be heard. “Chaldeans came from three directions and raided the camels and massacred the camel drivers.” While he was still talking, another messenger burst in with tragic news. “Your children were having a party at the home of the oldest brother, when a tornado swept in off the desert and struck the house. It collapsed and they all died.” (Scripture quotations from Job 1:14,18, The Message.)

Job’s reaction is exemplary. He fell to the ground and worshiped God saying, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken way, may the name of the LORD be praised” (1:20-21).

We should all take a cue from Job’s correct response. He was able to bow in worship and praise God’s character because he understood God’s sovereign role in his tragedies. Our focus in this post, however, is God. What is God’s role in our trials? How does He relate to Satan in the large and small details of our life? Do they alternate shifts? Does God take the day shift and Satan the night?

Who caused Job’s trial?

At the most basic level, natural forces did. These storms weren’t miraculous or rare. Such occurrences were common in that part of the world. No laws of nature were suspended. If television meteorologists had existed, they would have been on the local network news moments before warning of approaching storms. Bad weather killed that day.

At the same basic level, evil people caused Job’s trial. Criminal prosecutors would have sufficient cause to put these perpetrators behind bars. Greed along with a little desire for dark adventure motivated these criminals. They will one day answer to God for their appalling crimes.

At a deeper level, Satan caused the disasters in Job’s life. “Everything he has is in your hands.” God told him. The Bible doesn’t specifically say if Satan always influences the weather, but clearly, this day he had a hand in these storms. When it comes to the evil men in the plot, Scripture does say that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (I John 5:19, also 2 Cor. 4:4 and 2 Tim.2:26). Yes, the storms were natural events and the men acted true to their evil nature, but according to Scripture, Satan orchestrated it all. He will be punished for this in hell.

On the very deepest level, though, God authorized Job’s trials. Satan asked to destroy Job’s bubble of blessing and God signed the decree giving him permission.

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good things and calamities come” (Lamentations 3:38).

Job obviously knew who was ultimately in charge. He revealed this when he said, “The LORD gives and the LORD has taken away” and “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” At the end of the book, Job received comfort after “all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him” (Job 1:21; 2:10; 42:11).

From the highest angle, nothing happened to Job that God didn’t ordain. But notice how it occurred. Satan acted of his own volition. No one forced him to do what he did. He wanted to destroy Job and embarrass God. All God did was merely “lengthen his leash,” as Steve Estes says in When God Weeps [affiliate link].[i] Estes writes concerning the Sabeans and Chaldeans,

“They didn’t start their day with private devotions, seeking God’s guidance, learning that he wanted Job’s herds stolen and servants butchered, and riding off on a holy crusade. They were just a bunch of good ol’ boys enjoying a drunken looting spree, savoring life’s simple pleasures. No divine arm-twisting there. As for nature, it got up on the wrong side of the bed as it often does, helped along by Stan in a manner we aren’t privy to. It got to howling and blustering—tossing some fire crackers, crumbling some building, frying man and beast. It didn’t know the difference. As far as science is concerned, nature didn’t color outside the lines that day. Following the laws of high-and-low pressure systems, electric al charges, and other scientific principles that nature itself didn’t understand, nature just…shall we say it?…acted naturally.[ii]

God’s decree made room for these terrible events, but He didn’t perform them. In fact, He limited the heat of Job’s inferno of trials and steered the flames to accomplish results for Job’s long-range good.

Estes continues,

“[God] became a stowaway on Satan’s bus, erecting invisible fences around. Satan’s fury and bringing ultimate good out of Lucifer’s very wickedness. He exploited the deliberate evil of some very bad characters and the impersonal evil of some very bad storms without smothering anyone or anything. He forced no one’s hand, bypassed no one’s will, and (to our knowledge) suspended no natural laws.[iii]

So what was the good that came in Job’s life as a result of all the tragedies he endured? Was God just a cosmic sadist, or was there a loving purpose behind Job’s trials? At the end of the book a statement of Job’s is recorded. Job said of God,

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5, emphasis added).

The word for “seen” in the original language means: to feel, to experience, to learn, to reveal oneself, to ascertain, to make one feel or know, to cause to enjoy; to gain understanding, to be fully aware.

Can you imagine ascertaining the creator of the universe – the God who spoke the world into being? In The Case for Faith, [affiliate link] Peter Kreeft says,

God didn’t let Job suffer because he lacked love, but because he did love, in order to bring Job to the point of encountering God face to face, which is humanity’s supreme happiness. Job’s suffering hollowed out a big space in him so that God and joy could fill it.

As we look at human relationships, what we see is that lovers don’t want explanations, but presence. And what God is, essentially, is presence—the doctrine of the Trinity says God is three persons who are present to each other in perfect knowledge and perfect love. That’s why God is infinite joy. And insofar as we can participate in that presence, we too have infinity joy. So that’s what Job has—even on his dung heap, even before he gets any of his worldly goods back—once he sees God face to face. [iv]

God not only permitted Job’s trial, He limited it. If God didn’t control evil, the result would be evil uncontrolled.[v] God is constantly restraining Satan’s work so that torment and destruction do not overcome us.

Occasionally, as in the case of Pharoah, Job, Joseph and Jesus, God lifts his hand of restraint and allows evil men to fulfill their desires only because it serves God’s higher purpose.

“God uses everything for his own ends, even the wicked for a day of disaster” (Proverbs 16:4).

Torture / Murder

The New Testament is clear about Jesus’ torture and murder. God clearly decreed it. Preaching to a crowd in Jerusalem, Peter said, “Jesus of Nazareth…was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross…Repent…” (Acts 2:22-23, 38).

Notice the mention of:

• God’s foreknowledge – God saw it coming
• Repent – their guilt was real.
• God’s’ set purpose – God had a purpose for allowing it, and thus decreed it to occur. The literal reading is “by God’s having-been-decided counsel.”

Two chapters later the point is made even clearer: “Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:27-28).

A decree by God doesn’t make the parties involved mere marionettes on a string. Observe their actions. Pilate washed his hands nervously. The crowds declared, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!” The guilty people felt they were acting freely.

“Oh, but this is different,” you assert. “This is an exception to the rule. It was history’s great redeeming act. God’s role in this heinous act was okay. He switched the world out of autopilot long enough to pay for our sins.  On rare occasions like this, it is okay for God to run the world manually. ”

What circumstances are the result of hands-on governance by God?

Let’s look at the Bible and see what kinds of circumstances God is behind.

1. In Leviticus, God gave Israel instructions for dealing with mildew. “When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mildew in a house in that land, the owner of the house must go and tell the priest” (Leviticus 14:34-35).

The Israelites are instructed when they saw mildew placed by God, they were to call for the priest. But how were they to know the difference between God-caused mildew and that which just grows naturally on the wall? They were never told…because no such distinguishing factor exists.

2. In Exodus, Moses is reluctant to answer God’s call, arguing he’s not eloquent and articulate enough to be Israel’s spokesperson before Pharoah. “The LORD said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?’” (Exodus 4:11). God is sovereign over deafness, speech impediments and blindness.  Regarding the man born blind, Jesus said, “…this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).

3. Moving on from matters of disability to those of life and death, God speaks in Deuteronomy 32:39. “See now that I am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. When a baseball slammed into my nephew’s mouth and shattered his teeth, God was in control. When my good friend Stuart had a car accident that confined him to a wheelchair for life, God was behind it all. When three-year-old  Andy Leigh Allen was diagnosed with Leukemia and never lived beyond childhood, God was at the wheel. When Kristin Howard contracted meningitis at four years of age, and was deeply wounded with severe, life-long mental and physical handicaps, God was working the shift.

4. Proverbs tells us, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). The Athenian democracy used drawing lots, or sortition, to fill nearly all government offices and juries.  Special machines were used to ensure fair drawing of the lots. In 1954 in Rome, a 14-year-old-boy drew lots — a ball, actually — to determine whether Turkey or Spain would go to the World Cup. Today, football teams flip quarters to determine who kicks first. Youth tournament baseball teams flip a coin to determine who bats first. Yet, every winner past and present was and is chosen by God.

5. In Amos, we are asked, “When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? (Amos 3:6). Think of all the city disasters you’ve seen on 24-hour cable news. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, fires, bombs, terrorist attacks, widespread disease — none of it came about apart from God’s decree.

6. Regarding kings and leaders God said, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (Proverbs 21:1). Kings have ordered some gruesome tragedies throughout history: genocide; torture; stonings and murders of innocent people; tongues, fingers and limbs cut off; the use of chemical weapons against their own people. According to Proverbs 21:1, is the cross of Christ a mere exception to the rule?

6. Lamentations 3:37 says, “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?” This is all encompassing. It includes congressmen making promises, coaches calling plays, teachers having children form a line, daycare workers rocking and whispering “shhhh” in hushed tones to a homesick infant, a worship leader having all stand, a mother telling her kids to clean up their room and the President ordering a troop surge.[vi]

The Bible clearly states that nothing happens outside of God’s decree. Either the Bible is true or it isn’t. If we believe it is true, then we must embrace the truth regarding God’s sovereign rule over all the events of this life.

“The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom [his sovereignty] rules over all” (Psalm 103:19, emphasis added).

How can God be in control of sinful acts?

God never sins and He never tempts anyone to sin (see James 1:13). He never puts the idea of evil into anyone’s heart either.

It is as if God says, “So you want to sin? Go ahead. But I’ll make sure that when you do, your evil actions suit my higher purpose and plan.”  Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

God knew every detail of our lives before we were ever born. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16).

He sees our full, eternal potential and appoints the experiences necessary to cause us to reach it. To do anything less would be to cheat us out of the greatest blessings possible.

“God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).

^“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” (Romans 8:28, NKJ).

Although we have a will of our own, God governs all we do – even the evil intentions of people’s hearts. And He does it all without compromising His holy, righteous and loving nature.

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.  And all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What hast Thou done?’ “ (Daniel 4:34-35, emphasis added).

God turns evil (suffering) on its head to defeat evil (sin) in us.

For an example of God turning evil on its head, consider Ezekiel 20. God is recounting Israel’s rebellious history, including their idol worship that led to human sacrifice. In verse 26 He says, “I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.”

Centuries earlier God saw this in advance. He knew that Jewish babies would be killed in worship to the idol Molech. Long before this occurred, He saw where the Israelite’s rebellious ways would take them. He told Moses, “I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath” (Deut. 31:21).

Why then did He allow them to reach this point? To reveal the wickedness in their hearts. To make them see their sin and puke at the sight. God hates the murder of children. Scripture tells us God loves righteousness and hates wickedness (see Psalm 45:7). God hated the murder of these innocent children, but He allowed it so that sin could be exposed. Exposing sin was more important to Him than relieving suffering.

God steers what he hates in order to rid us of something He hates even more: sin.

I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me” (Psalm 119:75).

The root word for “faithfulness” in the original language means “trustworthiness.” God can be trusted with the course of our lives and all the details that occur.

Through our trials He is causing us to grow up, to hate our sin and to know Christ more fully – an experience no amount of prosperity or ease can match. He is proving our character – taking the impurities of our natural man and in return, imparting to us His holiness. (See Hebrews 12:10-11, Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, I Peter 1:6-7).

By allowing discomforts to touch us, God is giving us long-range vision. We recognize that this world isn’t our home.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

He is giving us His end-of-time perspective – and a value for the glory and reward that await us there.  The value we place on all things temporal – and our lust after them – is reduced.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

As our lives are stripped of every other resort, one thing alone stands as our key to survival – the Word of God (Jesus Christ, the Living Word, and the Bible, the written Word). Through our trials, we come to depend on the Word of God – and to treasure it – like never before.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word….It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold…If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (Psalm 119:67, 71-72, 92)

In this beautiful Psalm, David in essence says, “It was the Lord Himself who afflicted me – and I’m glad He did.  Out of his steadfast love and faithful commitment to me, He worked through my affliction to show me how I was wandering away from Him. During my suffering he opened up His Word to me like never before!   If God hadn’t helped me live by the life of His Word, I wouldn’t have made it through.”

No amount of perfection on this earth can amount to knowing Christ and His Word — to knowing His strength in our weakness, His peace in our turmoil, His comfort in our grief, His forgiveness in our bitterness, His endurance in our weariness, His love in our hate. As we yield to God’s wiser, higher plan, He replaces all the negative, bewildered feelings we might have with the heart of Christ — to which nothing compares.

“Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung.  I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him…I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power…” (Philippians 3:8)

Question: For what good purposes might God have allowed your current difficulties?

[ii] Ibid., 79

[iii] Ibid., 80

[iv] Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 69-70

[v]Ibid., 84

[vi] Idea from Steve Estes, When God Weeps (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), 75

Over the past few weeks, I have been revisiting a sweet truth I learned years ago: being weak in body is actually a wonderful opportunity – a chance to have more of myself removed and replaced with Christ.

Due to an extended absence of one of my major medications, I have grown quite weak and my brain chemistry has become abnormal. When I first began noticing the psychiatric effects, my emotions had become flat. I had no emotions – neither good nor bad. As weeks have passed, I have fluctuated between depression and flat emotions.

None of this matters except to illustrate a spiritual point that I believe will encourage you, whether your weakness is in your body, a stress on the job or a loss of some sort. Whatever it is that seems too frustrating, too hurtful, too impossible – it could be actually be an incredible opportunity.

Jesus Christ: An Indispensable Necessity

‎³Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek and require the Lord [as their indispensable necessity].  ⁴ Seek, inquire of and for the Lord, and crave Him and His strength…seek and require His face and His presence continually evermore.” Psalm 105:3-4, AMP

When you woke up this morning, were you able to start your day without spending time with God? Were you able to go about your agenda for the day without needing the presence of Jesus Christ to perform your tasks through you?

This alone is the true life of a Christian—its source, its sustenance, its end, all gathered up in one word—Christ Jesus.” – C.H. Spurgeon

I have been frustrated by the temporary absence of this vital medication. It didn’t have to happen. It seems to have been avoidable – the fault of man. However, I have known down deep that in reality, it would serve as a refresher course…and I might as well go ahead and welcome it as such, for this is likely why God allowed it to happen.

Refresher Course

One of the things I miss from my previous years of extreme sickness (and even the first years of improvement) is that I had to have Jesus’ very strength in me. I had to have the life of God’s Word. They were indispensable necessities for me.

Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God is “living and active.” That means that it has power and is capable of affecting change in our lives. The Bible is unlike any other book in the history of the world. It was inspired by the creator of the universe. Its words have His life in them.

When my brain chemistry was drastically abnormal (from encephalitis), the symptoms were unfazed by medication. The terrible feelings, sensations and thoughts never relented. But through His Word, God gave me the mind of Christ.

A born again believer, one could argue, is a little bit like an Apple computer. We have a dual platform. We are capable of running by the human operating system or our eternal operating system by the Spirit of God who lives within us.

In the instances where my mind was in total anguish, the Holy Spirit would call up the truths of Scripture and cause me to think, feel and operate by my Spiritual operating system. I could choose by faith the mind of Christ – and before long I would feel it.

A passage God always seemed to work through was Psalm 42. The psalmist was candid about his suffering:

“My tears have been my food day and night…deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me…I say to God my Rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?

In the midst of suffering, the psalmist craved one thing. One thing was an indispensable necessity:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

He wasn’t grabbing the television remote…his cell phone to call a friend and sob…or heading to Facebook to read the home feed. He knew he needed a feed direct from Heaven. All else was pointless!

He pours his heart out to God, then closes with a powerful statement:

“Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Like the psalmist, when I passed through seasons of a depressed mind and sad countenance, I waited expectantly for God. I would yet praise Him. And just as scripture promises, He was the help of my countenance!

Infused With Resurrection Power

My improvement phase was extensive. It took years to progress from being elevated from the waist up, to walking, driving, speaking and singing. For years, I never felt my body had the natural strength that was required.  Undertaking anything – whether a family gathering or a speaking event – meant  the Holy Spirit would have to be faithful to God’s promises and give me the strength of Christ.

One of my favorite verses in such an instance was Philippians 4:13 in the Amplified Bible:

¹³I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].

This is the reason why I emerged from those torturous years grateful for their existence. I had come to rely on Jesus and the life of His Word like never before.  Consequently, I had fallen deeply in love with the Word of God. It became more valuable to me than the rarest of treasures. I had experienced Jesus in ways that exceeded mere head knowledge.  When He became my thoughts, my mood, my physical strength, it was the most intimate kind of encounter with Him I could have on this earth.

The power that raised Christ from the dead raised me to new strength – His strength. But this kind of power – resurrection power – is clearly relative to death. In order to be resurrected, something has to die. Christ’s power could only inhabit the places of my life that were dead. To the degree that we are crucified, we will know His resurrection power. Weakness, difficulty or death of something is a great opportunity!

The years of affliction forced me to a place of not merely having Christ live in me but needing Him to live for me. There is a big difference between the two.

Have you discovered this difference?

Suffering – a Surprising Definition

Suffering impairs our ability to live autonomous of God – to survive by the abilities of our natural man. Suffering pushes us to the end of ourselves.

Suffering has been defined as having what you don’t want and wanting what you don’t have. Applying this definition, in what ways are you suffering in your life?  Is the life of Jesus and God’s Word a requirement for you concerning this area?

The Night Watches

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises. Psalm 119:148, NIV

Perhaps you have never experienced illness. So this kind of dependence upon God seems impossible to comprehend. At the risk of being too transparent, I will be candid about something I never share with others. It’s  about a weakness or loss other than bodily illness. Any difficulty, weakness or hardship is a cause to require the life of Jesus and God’s Word.

With audiences of women I occasionally mention that I was married many years ago. The illness took its toll on the marriage. When I was still very ill and confined to bed, I found myself suddenly alone in the home I had shared with my husband. The shock and grief were fresh. I felt as if someone had suddenly died. It was difficult to manage through the day, but even harder at night.

So at night, I took my Bible and placed it on the empty side of the bed, a tangible illustration of what I knew God would do for me. His Word would fill my emptiness. His Word would heal my grief. His Word would comfort me. And the instant I needed it, His Word would be there to infuse me with Christ’s life – His comfort, His strength, His peace, His healing.

I don’t remember how long I did this. Maybe every night for a week or two; then occasionally thereafter when the grief or loneliness would strike. Ever since my illness began, I have kept my Bibles in the nightstand by the bed. I’ve always wanted them close by. Yet moving the Bible this short distance stood for something. It was symbolic.  Once again, the life of the Word of God would live for me. (Jesus is the Living Word (See John 1:1, Rev. 19:13). Scripture is the Written Word.) The grace of God would carry me.

In the twelve years since, I have found it helpful on many nights to have the Bible by my side, though not because of grief or loneliness. It may be due to a particular stress, an overwhelming obstacle, or simply because I know my faith is under attack.

Regardless the reason, I like having the Bible near me. If I awake during the night, I can instantly take refuge in its truth. Sometimes I place it on my nightstand, at eye level between me and the alarm clock. That way, when I awake, I am reminded that nothing else comes first. Often, before falling asleep, I will have been seeking God about a problem. I will have gone to sleep meditating on His answer in Scripture. Leaving it open to that passage at eye level puts my focus immediately on God’s answer rather than the overwhelming nature of the problem when I awake.

And I—in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Psalm 17:15, NIV).

Thank God for Refresher Courses

And YET, in spite of loving Jesus and taking refuge in His word, as I have often taught is the case with us humans, the more comfortable our lives are, the less we tend to make the life of God’s Word an indispensable necessity. Nothing nudges us to the point where seeing Him, feeling Him, living by Him are not options; they’re daily requirements.

And so I too, as happens to others, have grown less dependent in recent years. Though I face many challenges and stresses in other areas of life, I can choose to cope with food, or television or friends or family – not by requiring the life of Christ.

But when bodily and psychiatric weakness is present and responsibilities do not relent, there is no other way to continue on than by the life of Christ.

For little things, such as getting up and dressed to big things such as ministry events, the life of Christ must live for me every moment of the day.

Christ’s Power Accomplished in Our Weakness

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul wrote about his thorn in the flesh. Three times he pleaded with God to take it away from him. Jesus’ reply to Paul was:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

The Greek word for “perfect” means to “complete, accomplish, fulfill.” Christ’s power is completed, accomplished and fulfilled in us when we depend on Him in our weakness.

Paul continued,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, NIV

When Paul said he would boast about his weaknesses, it meant that he would be “loud tongued” about them.We are loud tongued about miracles of restoration and healing. And we should be! But are we loud tongued about the miracle of Christ’s resurrection power living through us in our weaknesses, hardships and losses? No.

The majority of Christians in America have it all backward. We believe that having things and doing things represents the power and blessing of God on our lives. For me personally, the power of Christ has rested on me when I am the most broken, the most crucified, the most weak…and in the most difficulty.

When I have the most going for me and I’m the most comfortable and happy in life is when His power diminishes. That’s when I rely on my will and my abilities – my ‘human operating system.’ I coast on my own abilities or get preoccupied with my agenda.

This is a scriptural principle: with weakness, hardship, difficulty, insult and persecution comes spiritual power…if we yield to Christ in the midst of them. If we take refuge in His Word. If He is the one thing for which our soul thirsts. If the only quest we have is to meet with God.

Beloved, if this is where you are, and these are the desires of your heart, you will receive such a meeting, such an encounter with God, that you will never be the same! In fact, once there, you’ll never want this encounter to pass, no matter what circumstances ushered you there. I dare say you will even become grateful for the weakness that caused Christ to become a requirement. Because this encounter – this replacing of your strength with Christ’s resurrection power – will be the most incredible experience you could have this side of Heaven. Jesus Christ Himself will be living for you. Oh the joy, the miracle, of living by His life!

“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God…Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” Psalm 84:2, 10, NIV

In other words, the psalmist is saying, “No matter what it takes to know You, God – no matter what it takes for You to become a requirement in my life, it’s worth it! I don’t care what ushered me here, I would rather experience Your presence, Your power and strength with these problems than be without You in a life of ease.”

Beloved, whatever is causing you to press into Christ, it’s worth it! God is giving you an incredible opportunity to experience Christ like never before!

“Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life.  Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung.  I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him…I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself.  If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.” – Philippians 3:8, 10

Years ago I used to quietly sing a song as I was moving about, trusting Christ to be my strength. In recent weeks, it has returned. Oh how I praise God for the great exchange of the cross. Christ takes our flesh and gives us His very life and strength:

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone.
He’ll carry us when we can’t carry on.
Raised in His power, the weak become strong.
His strength is perfect. His strength is perfect.

Questions: How are you suffering? Is the life of Christ a requirement for you in your suffering, your weakness? Do you crave Him? Is the power of the Word an indispensable necessity for you?

I was driving from St. Louis to Columbia Missouri when I first heard this message. It was perfect timing too. After the fast (Pursuit 21) this past January, I went through a dry spell that only increased in dryness for months.  At first I was discouraged and depressed.  Although I knew our spiritual enemy had a hand in it – for he was no doubt angry as a result of the fast – and that God had allowed it, I felt somehow responsible.  I fought condemnation, but more than anything missed the fire and passion for Jesus that had previously filled and thrilled me. His presence had not only been close, it had consumed me during the fast. But now He seemed so distant, my love of His Word so cold.

What an encouragement it was to hear David Wilkerson describe the many dry spells that the men of God in the Bible endured!  He describes his own dry spells…and those of other godly saints of the past.

The best part is toward the end of the message when he explains the spiritual reason why God allows dry spells. Don’t miss it! It’s a liberating revelation!  If this is you – if you’ve been through a dry spell this year – then I urge you to take a few moments to listen to this life-changing message. Your burden will be lifted! You will be filled with comfort and trust in God!  And if you’re like me – by the end of the message, your spiritual feet will be walking on soil soaked by Living Water!

Click below to listen to Dry Spells:

Question: Do you view your dry spells differently now? How so?

Over the past decade, God has spoken to me time and again through David Wilkerson’s messages. I received them via print subscription for years. Only last summer did I discover the vast wealth of audio and video sermons that exist online. Since that time, I keep them loaded in my car, my iPhone/iPod and my computer.

There is a rare honesty in the Times Square Church messages regarding Biblical truth and the state of the contemporary Church in America. Topics are addressed that no one else is even raising. On top of that, they make their messages available for free. Yes, for free! And they give ministries such as Shades of Grace permission to post and share them. Clearly, their heart is to help people and to let nothing, like cost, be a barrier.

If I am blogging for the sake of sharing helpful content, how can I not share what has been the most helpful to me personally? So over the coming weeks, I will post Times Square Church sermons that God has used to speak to me.

The message I want to share with you today is “The Window of Faith.” I first heard it in April. Since then, I’ve listened to it twenty or thirty times…and still each time God shows me new, deeper truths.

Immediately riveting was the statement that after God gives a promise, He sentences it to death. This is true! Look in scripture – there is precedent.  This is what God does. I’ve lived it, but I’ve never heard it stated and supported in this exact way. When I was younger and launching out on faith in God’s personal promises, I knew I would have to hold fast my confession in the face of contradictory circumstances, but I don’t think I ever heard it stated so straight forward: God will sentence to death every human possibility of fulfillment.

Under the Death Sentence

When I first began to be ill, I sought God’s will. I read scripture with open eyes and ears to hear what God would say about His plans for my life. I wasn’t seeking a certain answer. I just needed direction as to what to do with my degree plan at Baylor and other aspects of life.  I didn’t choose a scripture in advance of God speaking it to me, but waited and listened submissively to what He would say.

I Will Turn Back Your Captivity

One day in the summer of 1992, as I was reading Zephaniah 3, God spoke. As I read from verse 18 to 19, something changed. No longer was it my voice reading silently, the voice of the Holy Spirit began to read.

“…at that time, I will undo all that afflict thee…At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you…when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the LORD” (Zeph. 3:19-20, KJV).

If you’ve listened to my testimony (Package of Pure Gold in the Media Center) you know that I made plans based upon God’s promise. I expected to complete my college degree and fulfill other future plans. Yet, less than three months after God spoke this word, illness forced to withdraw from college study entirely.

Captives of a Tyrant

My health continued to decline. A year later, I went back to God. I thought either I had missed Him or He’d never heard of a new device called a calendar. (When you are 21, a year is a LONG time to wait!). Again, I patiently waited and read scripture with an open eye and spiritual ear to hear what God would say.  Early one morning in the summer of 1993, the sun was rising and I was reading Isaiah 49. God breathed upon the passage and quickened much of the chapter.

19 Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.

20 The generations born in exile shall return and say, ‘We need more room! It’s crowded here!’

21 Then you will think to yourself, ‘Who has given me all these? For most of my children were killed and the rest were carried away into exile, leaving me here alone. Who bore these? Who raised them for me?’ ”

24 Who can snatch the prey from the hands of a mighty man? Who can demand that a tyrant let his captives go?

25 But the Lord says, “Even the captives of the most mighty and most terrible shall all be freed; for I will fight those who fight you, and I will save your children.” (Isaiah 49:19-21, 24-25)

I couldn’t believe how clear and specific God was. (As the years passed, I would find out just precisely God had spoken.) At the time terribly crippling and/or fatal diagnoses were being considered. With this declaration that “even the captives of the most mighty would be freed,” I had total peace. No matter how mighty a tyrant this disease would prove to be, God would deliver my children – my health and abilities. (At the time, I could never have imagined how mighty a tyrant Lyme disease could be.)

This time I thought I would get on God’s schedule. He seemed to be working in intervals of a year.  Though I was basically confined to the couch, my mom took me that day to buy a dress for a special occasion that was to occur the next Spring. I did this as a statement of faith that God would do what He said He would do. (Right idea. Wrong to set my time frame. Have since learned you can’t put a time frame on God’s fulfillment of a promise.)

Human Hope Gone

Six weeks later I had to use a wheelchair for the first time when outside the house. My health declined rapidly over the next five years. I became so weak I had to be carried through the house, bathed and fed. I experienced suffering beyond my ability to endure. The devastating illness confined me to bed – and then it literally stole my mind from me, leaving me unable to think or even speak coherently. On my worst days, it felt like I was literally being crushed by the overwhelming trial I faced.

What began with a flu, fatigue, stiffness, and pain had progressed until I was confined for over seven years in a wheelchair, a bed, and then within my mind, as the infectious disease caused severe cognitive destruction. I spent three years wailing and writhing from the mental torture caused by encephalitis.

I saw over 60 doctors seeking diagnosis alone. Once the correct diagnosis was made, I saw even more physicians for treatment. We tried treatments from the U.S. and around the world. Nothing brought improvement. Certainly nothing touched the brain agony and dysfunction. Medically, it was hopeless. My hope was in God alone.

God is Faithful

God is faithful! As you can see, He has largely fulfilled His promise. As stated, He has given back what was taken. I graduated from Baylor without taking another course. What was sentenced to death has been resurrected! There are a few lingering areas in my health that He is in the process of restoring, but this aspect of the promise regarding my health is no longer sentenced to death.

None Of Us Are Exempt

None of us, if we are truly moving forward with God, are exempt from this process. If we are making spiritual progress, there should always be promised ground we are believing God to possess. There should be a promise from God regarding an issue in our lives for which we are believing Him.

When God spoke in Isaiah 49 about my health, there was also much that He spoke about my future. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I can see God was speaking about ministry, about Shades of Grace…and about you, the spiritual fruit of the ministry. So I’m not out of the “death sentence” zone. I came out of it in some areas but re-entered it in others. There is MUCH I am believing God for…and therefore, many things are currently under the sentence of death.

If we are unaware of this aspect of God’s process, it makes us incredibly prone to discouragement. That’s why I believe this message is so valuable!

The Window of Faith

Times Square Church Message Description:

The window of faith is not an opportune time but an inopportune time when everything looks hopeless. God allows death to roll over our promises and we stop telling God how to fix our problems. God is searching for a people who will fully trust Him when all hope and human possibility is gone. In these last days God is going to have a wholly dependent people who don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Click below to listen to The Window of Faith:

Question: How is your personal promise from God currently passing through the Window of Faith – an inopportune, hopeless time?

Are you tired of wrestling with your sin nature? Do you long to do the right thing but fail in the same area time and again?

In this powerful message from Romans seven, Weston Nichols explains why this occurs and how this pattern can be broken. Do you beg God to take this familiar weakness from you? Weston reveals what invaluable opportunity this struggle affords you and gives practical steps as to how you can seize upon it. Watch “Breaking Free” and view your struggle in a whole new light. Be inspired to express your love for God and live a life of obedience!

Weston is my older brother. He has been in ministry for twenty-two years. God has given him many gifts as a speaker. He is extremely engaging and relevant, but the gift that amazes me most is his unfailing ability to present spiritual truths in such a way that anyone can understand them. I have seen him converse with seekers and explain deep Biblical concepts void any mysterious Christian lingo. He teaches in the same manner – never presuming one understands our age old terms. He is gifted with breaking down seemingly unfathomable concepts and presenting them in engaging, real world, relevant ways.  I believe you will be blessed by “Breaking Free,” the message God has given him!

(The message has been divided into four parts.  Each clip is a little less than ten minutes long.  After you have finished clip #1, click on clip #2 and the message will continue from where the prior clip finished.  If you continue this process through clip #4 you will see the entire message.)

Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

Hear more of Weston at: www.westonnichols.com/messages.html

Click here to read Weston’s blog The Skinny Road

Questions: What have you accepted as part of who you are rather than exerting discipline over it in order to become more holy? How do you plan to take advantage of this opportunity – this battle – and show God how much you love Him?

A bold sign placed strategically on a busy New Jersey highway — “My Life   My Death   My Choice  FinalExitNetwork.org” – is part of a “right to die” billboard campaign by Final Exit Network. The network claims the ads are aimed at people suffering from terminal illness, usually the elderly.

The billboard, along with one in San Francisco and another planned for Florida, anchor a national campaign by the network to raise awareness of its mission.Members say the locations were chosen for their reputations as socially progressive and, in Florida’s case, for its elderly population.

The network does not advocate physician-assisted suicide. Instead, it provides information about specific ways one can obtain what it terms “self-deliverance.”

On its website, the network proudly states that it offers clients advice on methods to end their lives. It boasts that as a right-to-die organization, what makes it unique among others in the United States is that it helps people who are not terminally ill to “hasten their death.”

The billboard campaign has created controversy, especially concerning the location of their advertisement and potential viewing by those who are suicidal and/or depressed.

Suicide prevention expert Dr. Judith Springer, a board member of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, says she is horrified by the signs.  “The idea of any of these upset, impressionable kids seeing a billboard like that absolutely horrifies me,” she said. “You can’t filter who sees a publicly displayed sign.”

Dr. Springer doesn’t disagree with the Network’s mission but she disagrees with how they’re delivering their message.

“We’re talking about a lot of people feeling desperate and suicidal. To be in that state and see that sign is an unnecessary risk,” she said.

“I had a girl in my office who said, ‘I feel as if I’m walking down a long hall, and all the doors are locked except the one that leads to death.’ If someone sees that sign,” Springer warned, “they may say that’s the way.”

“Every two minutes, someone under the age of 25 commits suicide,” she said. “For every suicide, there are 50 to 100 people who attempt it.”

I vehemently disagree with the group’s mission and their choice of delivering their message.  Life is God’s gift – all life, whether old or young, whether plagued with illness, pain, dementia, depression, spinal cord injury, mental handicap, torturous illness, progressive disease or a terminal diagnosis.

As stated in We Know Jack #1, Scripture clearly states that God – not man – is sovereign over life and death.

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me, I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39).

God ordained all of our days before even one of them came to be (see Psalm 139:16). He has appointed a time for our death.

• “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).
• “Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? (Ecclesiastes 7:17).

We are not to “hasten” our death. To assist someone in committing suicide is to commit murder and this breaks God’s unequivocal commandment in Exodus 20:13. “You shall not commit murder” includes self-murder.

I suppose it is only natural for someone who doesn’t know Jesus Christ personally to feel overwhelmed by life’s challenges.  They don’t know the One who Himself is our hope!  Without hope, I suppose there is little else to do but plan an escape…but to where?  To an eternity separated from God?

From a Biblical worldview, this notion is absurd. Our lives are not our own; we were bought with a price. God has an eternal purpose for allowing every circumstance that we encounter. He is powerful enough to trust with our lives, loving enough to trust with our trials and wise enough to trust with our tomorrows.

Yet those coming from a different worldview are influencing our entire society. The trickle down effect will impact us all – from the removal of life-prolonging health care and our freedoms to make medical decisions to the devaluing of all human life.  The time is long passed that we can presume nonsense such as Kevorkian movies and right-to-die billboards will affect only a microscopic percentage of Americans.

Many myths are propagated by right-to-die organizations. In Jack #1, we dispelled a few of these myths. Let’s dispel a few more:

Depression

Myth: Depression is a valid reason to grant assisted suicide.

The truth: Depression can be treated.

According to the eleventh annual report in Oregon (where assisted suicide is legal), 88 prescriptions for assisted suicide were written during 2008 but, of those, only two patients were referred for a psychological evaluation before receiving the prescription for assisted suicide.

Right-to-die organizations, like Dignity in Dying, advocate suicide as a therapeutic answer to the problem of depression. Their website and case examples are evidence of this. Every report published to date on the subject confirms, fear and depression – not pain – always play the major role in assisted suicide requests.

Personal Account

I have experienced clinical depression caused from both internal and external influences. During the first months of my disability, I became depressed by the sudden losses and changes in my life. Not doing anything…lying around sick all the time — it was a dramatic about face from college life at Baylor. During the week I was busy on campus; on the weekends I ministered in churches and traveled out of state for pageant training.

Forced to withdraw from school before graduating, I became clinically depressed. (In hindsight, aware that Lyme infects the central nervous system within the first 24 hours, there were likely internal, infectious causes of my depression as well.) I cried all the time, had thoughts of suicide and was prescribed anti-depressant medication, which helped tremendously.

This doesn’t mean that I never become discouraged, or weary, or sad. I spent many hours before God weeping and pleading for relief from my confinement. In every instance, God met me, took my burdens and replaced them with His joy and perspective.

As the Lyme bacteria further affected my brain, I began to feel electrocuted or burned alive…but where one feels thoughts. It was torturous! Excruciating – more excruciating than the sum total of bodily pain and sickness I had endured over the years! I had been confined to wheelchair and to bed, but it was nothing compared to this.

If ever I thought I was in an “I can’t take it” scenario, this was it. And I let God know! I wanted out. I didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want to be alive and didn’t want to endure any more torture. It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to die; I just wanted relief. There was no known medical treatment that would help. For three years my family exhausted all the United States and other countries had to offer…all to no avail.

But you know what? Looking back, those three years of seemingly unbearable moments taught me where true joy resides. I learned this sweet lesson a few years earlier. Only this time, I experienced it in a much deeper way.

“You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11).

No matter what is going on in our circumstances or our mental health, pure joy is available.

Scripture says that “we have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16). I remember months in which my mind was desperately dysfunctional from Lyme encephalitis. When confined and unable to do things, your mind is what you use to cope – to occupy yourself and pass time.

For several years, I didn’t have the ability to do this – to pass time or add pleasure to the day by reading, watching television or talking with friends. However I was cognizant enough to feel the terrible sensations in my brain. I couldn’t feel pleasure in normal ways. My existence was miserable. My thinking was screwed up. I wanted out! I begged God to take my life.

Package of Pure Gold

Thank God for the hope and promise that are in Christ! When total chaos, death and despair were swirling in my mind Jesus replaced it all with His mind – with His thoughts, His joy, His peace and perspective.

This is why I say that the most priceless treasure I’ve ever received is the gift of knowing Jesus more intimately—literally existing by His life—because of the trial I went through. This incredible gift came “wrapped” in the paper of hardship and suffering. I was tempted to judge the gift by the wrapping paper and throw it away…or at the very least, resent it. But I finally came to understand that my trial wasn’t a plague of severe loss – but a package of pure gold.

The Word of God – An Indispensable Prescription

Although I had a personal relationship with Jesus since childhood, I never knew how much of Him I was missing until I experienced suffering beyond my ability to endure.  On my worst days, it felt like I was literally being crushed by the overwhelming trial I faced. I asked God to take me home, and considered taking my life myself because it seemed the torture was more than I could bear.

This forced me to turn to God’s Word and the life of Christ like never before. They became so much more than head knowledge to me. They became my life! My existence!  My joy!  I had never clung to the truth and life of God’s Word so tightly. I had never needed the Spirit of Jesus Christ so desperately.

When I put my trust in Christ as a young girl, His Spirit came to dwell in me.  Yet, the years of affliction brought me to a place of needing Him to live for me. There is a big difference between the two.  One is me doing my best for Christ and the other is Him living my life for me.

Stripped of my abilities and unable to survive apart from Jesus, I came to exist by His life and the life of God’s Word. This is what I mean when I say that my illness has been a package of pure gold. It was the best experience of my life. Because of my affliction, I relied upon God’s Word and the life of Christ. I was infused with His comfort, His peace, His strength, His joy and His eternal perspective. I was infused with grace beyond measure – God’s comfort for life’s trials.

When we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, He comes and lives in us (see Ga. 4: 6 and 2 Cor. 1:22). As born again Christians, we dwell on two plains: a temporal, earthly plain – in our ‘natural’ man – and a spiritual, eternal plain through the Spirit of Christ.

Suffering impairs our ability to live autonomous of God – to survive by the abilities of our natural man. Suffering pushes us to the end of ourselves. This is obvious. But what’s at the end for you, for your loved one, for your family member? Is it Christ?

I wholeheartedly support treating clinical depression with medication. Yet I also know that life is plagued with constant imperfections that can rob us of our joy. We can have the most healthy brain chemistry in the world and still be joyless and hopeless apart from Christ.  The life of Jesus and God’s Word should be a vital part of any treatment regimen.

“The word of God is living and active,” Hebrews 4:12 says. The Greek word for “active” is energes. It was a word used in secular society to describe a medicine that was effectively engaged in the work it was designed to do. God designed His Word – the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and the written word, the Bible – to do a work in all of our lives. We must all remember to take this vital prescription!

Fear

Myth: Fear is a legitimate cause for assisted suicide

Truth: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, KJV).

“God didn’t give us a cowardly spirit but a spirit of power, love, and good judgment.” (2 Tim. 1:7, God’s Word Translation).

According to a report entitled, “8 Years under Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law,” the major reasons for the 246 reported assisted suicides involved fear of what the future might bring.

The story of Sir Edward Downes (see We Know Jack, #1), former conductor of Britain’s Royal Opera is a prime example. Fear of potential sorrow and loneliness if his wife died of cancer drove him to choose assisted suicide along with his wife.

The stories on Dignity in Dying’s website betray the fact that fear, not terminal illness, is the main cause of assisted suicides. Many of the stories use the word “if.”

Beloved, you and I know that we have nothing to fear. We know that God has promised to carry us through every moment of our lives.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4).

We know that we have nothing to fear. God’s grace – His life lived through us – will carry us and bless us through any hardship that comes our way.

Those with a Biblical worldview clearly know that assisted suicide is reprehensible. But this doesn’t mean that we can sit on our spiritual laurels and let the culture of death take over America. The implications are too great! We are to be salt and light, to pray, to intercede and to actively oppose such ideas and legal steps wherever they occur.

Dignity

Myth: Loss of ‘dignity’ is sufficient cause for assisted suicide.

Truth: Our dignity as human beings is not determined by whether we are ambulatory or can go to the restroom unaided.

“The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).

God’s breath is what gives us life and dignity. We are mere creatures of an infinitely wise and powerful God who busies Himself with our every step (see Psalm 37:23, Amplified).Because He knit us in our mother’s womb and sent His son to die for us to pay the price for our sins,  we have dignity.

In my interview with Scott Brodie, he kept referring to “identifying with Christ.” When I asked him what he meant by that,  he answered with a story. (See Scott Brodie: Answers and Inspiration to watch Scott telling the story.)

One day he was in the bedroom having a rough day. His wife was busy in the other room. He had been spitting on himself. He had an accident. He looked like a mess. (Some would mischaracterize it and say Scott’s life no longer had “dignity.”)

His wife came into the bedroom and immediately began to clean him up and care for him. As she did, Scott caught his reflection in the mirror. He had tubes coming out of him. He was soiled and dirty. He looked in the mirror and said, “That’s not me. I’m a king. I’m a child of God. He loves me. I’m not that man in the mirror. I’m a co-heir with Christ.”

Once again, the antidote to assisted suicide is the life of Christ. Our ‘dignity’ comes from His life. The more we are content to remain lukewarm as Christians, dimming our light and hoarding our salt, the more society and we will lose precious freedoms.

A Favor

Myth: Assisted suicide is a help to the dying.

Truth: It only hurts the plight of the dying and disabled.

Robert Salamanca suffered with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease) for seven years when he wrote an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“On January 8, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether terminally ill people have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide,” he wrote. “After the two-hour hearing, with its blending of emotion and law, the justices seemed highly skeptical.”

“I hope so,” he continued. “For as Chicago’s beloved Cardinal Joseph Bernardin wrote to the Supreme Court just before he died:

There can be no such thing as a ‘right to assisted suicide’ because there can be no legal and moral order which tolerates the killing of innocent human life, even if the agent of death is self-administered. Creating a new ‘right’ to assisted suicide will endanger society and send a false signal that a less than ‘perfect’ life is not worth living.

Robert embraced life, even with its imperfections:

Euthanasia advocates believe they are doing people like me a favor. They are not. The negative emotions toward the terminally ill and disabled generated by their advocacy is actually at the expense of the “dying” and their families and friends…

What we, the terminally ill, need is exactly the opposite—to realize how important our lives are. And our loved ones, friends, and, indeed, society need to help us feel that we are loved and appreciated unconditionally.

Instead, reporting in the media too often makes us feel like token presences, burdens who are better off dead… Many pro-euthanasia groups “showcase” people with ALS. They portray us as feeble, unintelligible and dying by slow suffocation. This is absolutely false, and I protest their efforts vehemently. By receiving proper medical care, a terminally ill person can pass away peacefully, pain-free and with dignity. We are not people just waiting for someone to help us end our misery, but to the contrary, we are people reaching out to love… to be loved… wanting to feel life at its best.

Too many people have accepted the presumption that an extermination of some human lives can be just. Are we becoming a society so starved for heroes that we are too quick to embrace the Jack Kevorkians of the world? Where has our sense of community gone? True, terminal illness is frightening, but the majority of us overpower the symptoms and are great contributors to life.

If physician-assisted suicide is legally available, the right to die may become a duty to die. The hopelessly ill may be subtly pressured to get their dying over with — not only by cost-counting providers but by family members concerned about burdensome bills, impatient for an inheritance, exhausted by care-giving or just anxious to spare a loved one further suffering.

In my view, the pro-euthanasia followers’ posture is a great threat to the foundation upon which all life is based, and that is hope. I exhort everyone: Life is worth living, and life is worth receiving. I know. I live it every day.[i]

- Robert Salamanca (Emphasis added.)

The End is Near

Myth: Diagnosis and symptoms that indicate fast approaching death always come to that end. Why not hasten it a little and spare the misery?

Truth: Many people outlive their estimated date of death. In the intervening time, invaluable occurrences take place. Families are mended, children are born, grievances are reconciled, last holidays are celebrated…and most importantly, lives are purified and prepared for eternity. Heavenly crowns are accrued (see James 1:12). Those who don’t know Christ are given an additional time in which to turn to Christ and change their eternal destiny.

Just take a look at the Brodies. Scott was given just two to five years to live…thirteen years ago! He and Glennis’ youngest child, Kylee, was six years old when Scott was diagnosed.  She just graduated high school in May. Scott and Glennis have seen their daughters play volleyball, their children graduate, their son grow up and help with their business and their oldest daughter marry (Scott even danced at her wedding) and give birth to their first grandchild! And so much more!! Scott was told he would never live to see these things.

A report by the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide notes the fact that while patients in Oregon are supposed to just have six months to live, a number of individuals who have been granted the lethal prescriptions but who have subsequently decided not to end their lives go on to live longer.

“The time between writing the assisted suicide prescription and death ranged from zero to 698 days,” says the report. “Thus, some patients lived for almost two years after receiving the lethal drugs – well beyond the required six months’ life expectancy.”

Although the rules supposedly require those handed the lethal prescriptions to have a life expectancy of only six months, some who subsequently decide not to kill themselves have gone on to survive for a year-and-a-half more.

Dr. Peter Rasmussen, an advisory board member of the Oregon chapter of C &C (Compassion & Choices, formerly the Hemlock Society) has been involved in Oregon assisted-suicide deaths numbering into double digits.  The International Task Force report states that Dr. Rasmussen said that, “life expectancy predictions for a person entering the final phase of life are inaccurate. He dismissed this as unimportant, saying, ‘Admittedly, we are inaccurate in prognosticating the time of death under those circumstances, we can easily be 100 percent off, but I do not think that is a problem. If we say a patient has six months to live and we are off by 100 percent and it is really three months or even twelve months, I do not think the patient is harmed in any way….”[ii]

Gary and Bonnie Eisler

In November, 1997, Gary Eisler, who lives in Oregon, wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.

In moving words, Eisler described the slow, painful death from cancer of his dearly-loved wife, Bonnie. When the cancer spread from Mrs. Eisler’s breast to her brain, her doctor recommended that all treatment be stopped.

Bonnie Eisler spent the last two months of her life in agonizing pain. Yet, Eisler says, many “wonderful things” happened during that time: the birth of their first grandchild, a last Christmas together.

In spite of his wife’s suffering, Eisler wrote that their last hours together were “some of the most intimate and precious of our marriage….Reason and compassion would have dictated that Bonnie’s life be ended weeks earlier,” he said, “but how much poorer everyone—including her—would have been.”

Eisler closes his piece with a sober warning. Unless assisted suicide is repealed, “it will not be long before the vultures begin circling.” Cancer treatment is expensive. If Bonnie Eisler had known the cost of her treatments, her husband says, “she might well have felt she was a burden” and opted to kill herself.”

Eisler asks one final question: “Will what has been ‘optional’ someday become ‘suggested’— and perhaps eventually required?”

Compassion

Myth: Assisting or instructing someone in taking their life is compassionate and merciful.

The truth: Because of His unfailing love, God shows compassion.  His compassion is given to us freely as we yield our lives to His authority.

Lamentations 3:32 tells us that God “will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.”

“This I call to mind and therefore I have hope.  Because of the LORD’S great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘the LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’” Lamentations 3:21-25

From God’s viewpoint, compassion is sitting by someone’s bedside, helping them manage their pain, lifting them out of their depression, keeping them from being isolated. Compassion is helping them see the positive meaning in their suffering…and sharing God’s unfailing love. This is compassion. Not a billboard encouraging you to kill yourself. Not a lethal drug. Not instructions as to how to commit suicide.

What about pain?

Often those in favor of euthanasia use the words “mercy” and “compassion” as their argument.

Scripture authorizes man to treat the pain but it does not authorize taking the life of the dying.

Proverbs 31:6, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” Today we have many medications that help relieve pain and unbearable symptoms, as “strong drink” did in Solomon’s day.

Pain and Palliative Care

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as: The active, total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment.

The purpose of palliative care is to achieve the best quality of life for patients. Some feel that to a great extent euthanasia is practiced as a substitute for palliative care.

This is the case in the Netherlands – where a long, frightening experiment with assisted suicide has proven that wherever assisted suicide and euthanasia are practiced, they become the rule, not the exception, for people with terminal illness. What then becomes of the most vulnerable people among us?

Dr. Herbert Hendin, professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention studied the Dutch experience with assisted suicide. According to Dr. Hendin’s 1996 congressional testimony, in the Netherlands,  “pressure for improved palliative care appears to have evaporated,” because of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

“Over the past two decades,” Hendin continued, “the Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to nonvoluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Once the Dutch accepted assisted suicide it was not possible legally or morally to deny more active medical (assistance to die), i.e. euthanasia, to those who could not effect their own deaths. Nor could they deny assisted suicide or euthanasia to the chronically ill who have longer to suffer than the terminally ill or to those who have psychological pain not associated with physical disease. To do so would be a form of discrimination. Involuntary euthanasia has been justified as necessitated by the need to make decisions for patients not competent to choose for themselves.” [iii]

Allegations of abuse caused the Dutch government to conduct studies in 1990, 1995 and in 2001. Hendin, one of a few foreign researchers allowed to extensively study the situation in the Netherlands, says of the Dutch government study:

“Physicians’ anonymity was protected and they were given immunity for anything they revealed. Violations of guidelines became evident. Half of Dutch doctors feel free to suggest euthanasia to their patients, which compromises the voluntariness of the process. Fifty percent of cases were not reported, which made regulation impossible. The most alarming concern has been the documentation of several thousand cases a year in which patients who have not given their consent have their lives ended by physicians. A quarter of physicians stated that they “terminated the lives of patients without an explicit request” from the patient. Another third of the physicians could conceive of doing so.” [iv]

In his testimony, Hendin said the Dutch assisted suicide studies have demonstrated how inadequately physicians are trained in palliative care in the Netherlands.

Americans should be putting effort and resources into things like palliative care that increase a patient’s quality of life rather than adopting approaches that will end patients’ lives.

As Christians, our goal should be to improve people’s lives and help them see the positive meaning in their conditions. Let’s help those who are in despair. Instead, by our passivity, we are allowing their plight to be inaccurately redefined and laws to be passed which make it easier for them to die.

Question: In light of these facts, what do you feel should be the fate of the billboard campaign in America?

[ii] http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/pdf/Eleven_Years_of_PAS_OR_08_09.pdf

[iii] Herbert Hendin, M.D., “Suicide, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Lessons From the Dutch Experience,” U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Oversight Hearing, April 29, 1996.

[iv] http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54071

“God likes to see His people shut up to this, that there
is no hope but in prayer.  Herein lies the Church’s
power against the world.”
- Andrew Bonar

I have a sign in my yard. Having it out and displaying its message is the only reason I’m glad I live on a highway that is frequented with steady traffic.

The sign says, “PRAYER, America’s Only HOPE, 2 Chron. 7:14″

If you drive through the bustling metropolis of Nacogdoches, Texas (population 32,305), you will see this exact sign staked on the lawn of home after home after home.

But how many of us are actually praying?

Do we really believe this is America’s only hope? If we do, we’re certainly not acting like it!

“One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer
and never do any praying.”
- Catherine Marshall

I am grieved for our nation like never before.  An innocent plop on the couch last week, in hopes of watching TV and resting a bit, set me on a course of study that has turned my insides—a study of the culture of death in America.

I should have been more aware of what has been happening to our society. I mean I’ve known about it. But that doesn’t mean I’ve faced head on the course we’re traveling as a nation and the almost certain outcome that lies ahead – unless a miracle occurs.

Battling Lyme disease and overseeing the growth of a ministry has kept my plate pretty full for the past decade. Maybe that’s why my eyes have not been fully opened.

Or maybe it’s because just like teaching, when we research and study something well enough to present it to others, we truly know it. Researching for the posts on assisted suicide forced my eyes wide open concerning some pretty grave issues.

Or perhaps it’s just the times…or my age.

Regardless the cause, it’s high time that I wake up!

Yet simply becoming aware is not enough. Christians are waking up to many sobering facts…but we’re not acting as if Scripture teaches that prayer is our only hope.

One question has been plaguing me for months – especially as it concerns America’s pastors, churches and ministry leaders:

Why are we not praying?

I don’t understand why not?  Why aren’t our spiritual leaders leading us in prayer gatherings– not 15-minute prayer meetings but gatherings in which the chief purpose and priority is prayer?  It would be beneficial not only to us as a nation but to individual churches as well.

I don’t understand why corporate prayer is shunned by church leaders. Perhaps it is due in part to our media-driven age—where waiting on God in prayer doesn’t measure up to flashy media presentations and culturally relevant material.

Maybe it is because so many church services are televised and pastors feel they must produce a “program” for TV.

Maybe pastors fear that corporate prayer would be too somber, too boring…or get too out of control. Perhaps they feel it would make some people feel uncomfortable.

I completely understand the need to be relevant, to be modern, to utilize the tools God has given us in modern day technology.  I know that television programs have to retain interest and be geared with viewers and their habits in mind.  But at some point, we are defeating our very purpose if we are not designating times set apart for prayer. And I mean more than just Wednesday night prayer meeting where ten people age sixty-five and older attend.

I have a friend who has been a member of a very large, well-known church in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for many years. This church is known throughout the nation. In generations past, fiery ministers left its walls to reach the world. Almost every time I speak with my friend, she mourns the decline of the prayer meeting at her church. It is now held in an old auditorium on a weeknight. Only a few senior citizens attend–though church attendance on Sunday is astronomical. I favor senior citizens praying; I just think the rest of us ought to join them!

“The early Church exerted the privilege of prayer.  The Church of today is in danger of deserting the privilege.  With all of our technology, invention and innovation, let us emphasize, centralize, and prioritize on prayer – life’s limitless reach!”

- Jack Taylor

Corporate prayer is in the best interest of an individual church, its congregation and community.  I don’t understand why individual pastors don’t make it a priority. I don’t understand why they don’t decide:

“You know what? No more going through the motions without the Spirit of God. Hardly anybody comes to prayer meeting on Wednesday night, so the prayer meeting is going to go to the folks. This Sunday morning, we’re not having church as usual. We’re going to pray and seek God until He tells us to stop.  We are going to wait on Him. If we don’t sense a breakthrough, we’ll do the same next Sunday.”

I don’t understand why we’re not praying, fasting, repenting, interceding until God responds.

“What the Church needs today is not more or better machinery, not new organizations or more and novel methods.  She needs men whom the Holy Spirit can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.  The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men.  He does not come on machinery, but on men.  He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer!”

- E.M. Bounds

“The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings.  So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people.  If God be near a church, it must pray.  And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

True power of God is wielded on our knees. Kingdoms are shattered. Rulers defeated. The lost are won to Christ and the saved revived through prayer.

We act as if church growth and church attendance equal spiritual power. The Church in America is large, wealthy…and powerless.  We are, for the most part, spiritually asleep!  And it seems as if our leaders are content for us to remain that way.

After the Concert of Prayer and all-night prayer meetings this past year, I will never be the same. Individuals around me will never be the same – either because they were involved in the prayer meetings, or because their lives were changed as a result of the prayers and promises pleaded at those meetings.

At church, we go through the motions every Sunday, content to proceed without the power of the Holy Spirit. If God withdrew His presence from your church this Sunday morning, would anyone notice? Or would everything go on as planned – media, music, message and an orderly exit. What happened to the men of God who knew that everything else was pointless unless we have first prayed down the power of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit? All of our modern methods and contemporary structures don’t replace that fact.

“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”
- A.W. Tozer

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services, but few conversions; much machinery, but few results.”
- R.A. Torrey

Gary + Tony had a Baby

The evening that I was so tired and just wanted to veg in front of the TV for a few minutes was the evening I turned the channel to Larry King’s program. Jack Kevorkian was the guest that night, rationalizing and glamorizing murder. Between Kevorkian, HBO and Hollywood, the idea is looking quite appealing. What a deception.

When a commercial came on, I turned to CNN headline. On CNN headline was an interview with two gay men, Tony and Gary, who had a baby by paying a surrogate $100,000. The interview featured a third guest, a man who adopted a child with his gay partner.

Please don’t mistake me. I love homosexuals, just as Christ does. I love the people and pray for their salvation but disagree with the lifestyle.  Scripture calls it sin.  This same story, “Gary + Tony Had a Baby,” was going to be featured on Anderson Cooper on CNN the following Monday night.  It wasn’t just the subject matter that grieved me, it was the blatant fact that homosexuality is becoming accepted. The fact that perversion is so prevalent in America.  The fact that our society is eroding beneath us. The fact that a culture of death has consumed our values, our decisions, our actions – individually and as a society – more than we realize.

These two interviews – children growing up with two dads and Hollywood conditioning us to cheapen life even further than we already have—are indicative of just how far down the slippery slopes we’ve drifted.  Sin, immorality, death, perversion…it’s everywhere we turn!

Why are we not praying – and praying in earnest?

“The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church…grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.”

- Leonard Ravenhill

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14

What If?

What if this Sunday, July 4^th, every church in America dispensed with the sermons, the music, the media displays, the skits…and got on our faces before God? What would happen if millions of Christians across the nation were praying in unity? July 4th falling on a Sunday makes it the perfect occasion for national prayer.

Forget the television cameras. Let Americans at home pray with us! Forget the visitors and what they might think.  Forget that the offering might be less. Forget that some might get bored and leave.  Are we now trying to please men or God?

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).

What if we all showed up, bowed in prayer and repentance…and waited on the Holy Spirit?  If God shows up and leads us into song, great! If the Holy Spirit puts a word on the pastor’s heart, excellent!

But what if we were sincere and desperate enough before God to dispense with business as usual?

I am clearly not a pastor. I don’t believe Scripture gives women the authority to be pastors, nor would I want to be one.  So it may be incredibly presumptuous of me to even voice this desire, or rather, frustration over the absence of corporate prayer in the Church in America.

If I didn’t know that this is the prescription from Scripture for our nation, I might entertain the idea that I am way off base, that I simply don’t understand what it is like to be a pastor and lead a church service.

However, I am a pastor’s daughter and know full well the importance of planning, having an order of service, featuring certain topics, having engaging music, being culturally relevant, being savvy when it comes to using different forms of media, etc. I know all of that. But tell me, what true, eternal difference do all of our spiritually empty, powerless acts make in the lives of others?

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”

- Samuel Chadwick

I realize that pastors have numerous challenges and obstacles within their congregation. Some can be positive, like rapid growth, and others can be negative. These local, immediate challenges can be so overwhelming that they force nationwide concerns to take a back seat. However, an individual church will never rise above its own challenges apart from prayer. It will not impact its community the same way as it would if strategies were preceded by prayer. Even if a pastor’s primary interest is his church, above the nation, still prayer is what is called for.

Personally, I believe if more pastors believed in prayer, and led their church in earnest prayer (not the 15 minute, somber, Wednesday  night kind) our churches would be transformed. The power of God would rock the individual church where such meetings occur.  Talk about church growth!  People becoming truly saved, truly revived, passionately sold-out for Christ—now that’s church growth. I don’t know a pastor in the world who wouldn’t want these kinds of believers in their pews.

As a leader, from the perspective of “me and mine,” I don’t understand why pastors aren’t leading their churches in prayer. It is in the best interest of the people in their congregation and their community.

This doesn’t make sense to me on an individual church basis.  Nor does it make sense to me from a national perspective.

If we engaged in earnest, corporate prayer, the power of God would rock the individual church, our cities, our states and our nation.

“Satan does not care how many people read about prayer if only he can keep them from praying. When a church is truly convinced that prayer is where the action is, that church will so construct its corporate activities that the prayer program will have the highest priority.”

- Paul E. Billheimer

Quotes

“We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is because He knows we have much need of it.”

- Charles H. Spurgeon

“When we work, we work; but when we pray, God works.”

- Max Lucado

“God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing prayer.”

- John Wesley

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services, but few conversions; much machinery, but few results.”

- R.A. Torrey

“Prayer as a relationship is probably your best indicator about the health of your love relationship with God. If your prayer life has been slack, your love relationship has grown cold.”

- John Piper

“Prayer is not a fruitless exercise that God asked us to perform to determine whether or not we’re faithful. Prayer is the vehicle that releases God to move in the earth!”

- Joseph Cameneti Sr.

“There is no power like that of prevailing prayer, of Abraham pleading for Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses standing in the breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse and grief, Jesus in sweat of blood. Add to this list from the records of the church your personal observation and experience, and always there is the cost of passion unto blood. Such prayer prevails. It turns ordinary mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain. It brings life. It brings God.”

- Samuel Chadwick

“The chief danger of the Church today is that it is trying to get on the same side as the world, instead of turning the world upside down. Our Master expects us to accomplish results, even if they bring opposition and conflict. Anything is better than compromise, apathy, and paralysis.  God give to us an intense cry for the old-time power of the Gospel and the Holy Ghost!”

- A. B. Simpson

“The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting.  This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology.  She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!”

- Leonard Ravenhill

“The time factor in prayer is very important. In the exercise of prayer God is not tied to our clocks. Neither is He at the other end of the phone to receive and answer our two-minute calls. It takes time to know the mind of God, to shut out the material things of earth and to be wholly abandoned.”

- Hugh C. C. McCullough

“You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning.  You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night.  But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting.”

- Anonymous minister quoted in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala

“Prayer is the source of the Christian life…Otherwise, it’s like having a baby in your arms and dressing her up so cute—but she’s not breathing! Never mind the frilly clothes; stabilize the child’s vital signs…That’s why the great emphasis on teaching in today’s churches is producing such limited results.  Teaching is good only where there’s life to be channeled.  If the listeners are in a spiritual coma, what we’re telling them may be fine and orthodox, but unfortunately, spiritual life cannot be taught. Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, ‘We are not New Testament Christians if we don’t have a prayer life.’ This conviction makes us squirm a little, but how else will there be a breakthrough with God?”

- Jim Cymbala

“Let us think of the need of souls, of all the sins among God’s people, of the lack of power in so much of the preaching, and begin to cry, ‘Wilt thou not revive us again; that thy people may rejoice in thee?”  And let us have this truth lodged deep in our hearts; every revival comes, as Pentecost came, as the fruit of united, continued prayer.”

- Andrew Murray

Question: Why do you think churches in America have abandoned corporate prayer? What can you do to impact the prayer life of your church?

Feel like you can’t get a break in life? Tired of life’s constant struggles? Does it seem like circumstances are too tough – too insurmountable?  Scott Brodie has a word of encouragement for you today.

This post is part of a series on assisted suicide – but don’t let that keep you from perusing. No matter the topic, these videotaped excerpts from the Brodie home will bless and encourage you. They encouraged me greatly!

Scott and his wife Glennis shared their inspiring story in Walking Through the Valley: The Scott Brodie Story. (Click here to watch.) Every time I catch a glimpse behind the scenes of Scott’s journey with ALS, I am instantly, deeply, eternally changed.  My perspective is transformed. If you are walking through hardship great or small, come go with me to the Brodie home and be encouraged…

The Scene

From behind the camera comes a soothing, upbeat voice. If you were listening to the audio alone, you might think she doesn’t have a care in the world. One glimpse through the lens, however, reveals an entirely different picture.

Sitting in a chair, her husband Scott cannot move his arms or hands. Underneath his shirt is a back brace that holds his head up. It extends from his lower back to the crown of his head. Although he can’t turn his head in the brace, thankfully it allows him to sit upright, walk and move around.

Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), has also affected Scott’s speech.  Glennis has become accustomed to ‘interpreting’ over the years. (When I interviewed Scott and Glennis on camera in 2006, Glennis anticipated having to interpret Scott’s words – so only she was miked for sound. Surprisingly, Scott spoke the entire time and could be clearly understood.)

The tracheostomy Scott had last year reduced his ability to speak even more. At night, when Scott is on the ventilator, he cannot speak at all because the cuff is inflated. Glennis interprets as he spells letters with his foot.  She’s very adept at interpreting. Sometimes Scott only has to sign a few letters and Glennis figures out the whole word…maybe even the entire phrase. Of course, it helps to have been married for twenty-five years. I suppose after all that time you could almost read your spouse’s mind.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a brief segment of Larry King’s interview with Jack Kevorkian. I was appalled. Absolutely sickened.  God immediately gave me the idea of calling Scott Brodie to ask him to watch the next airing of the Kevorkian interview and share his thoughts with us.

I had forgotten, until I watched the next airing myself, that Thomas Youk – the man for whose murder Kevorkian was sentenced to prison – had ALS, like Scott Brodie. (Perhaps I was too sick when the conviction occurred to remember this key fact.) In typical fashion, God was working in the details. He knew Scott’s input on this topic would be invaluable.

Scott types with his toes and has an incredible blog. He maneuvers the mouse with his feet and accomplishes a great deal on the computer and the internet.  I look forward to a true ‘guest post’ from Scott in the future – one without my words – but this week, in order to post a prompt response to a vital issue, this guest post became a collaborative effort between Scott, Glennis and me.

Below is video of Scott’s post – as well as a dialogue transcript that includes Glennis’ interpretations and elaborations. I’m glad she weighed in! Assisted suicide has become an appealing idea to caretakers as well.

A documentary about Kevorkian, the assisted-suicide advocate, began airing this week on HBO. A companion piece to the HBO movie “You Don’t Know Jack,” starring Al Pacino and Susan Sarandon, the documentary sparked a pro-killing media blitz across the nation. One would hardly recognize it as such, though, for killing is beautified – packaged as mercy at its best.  The movie, documentary, interviews and press coverage have produced an innocent, enticing image of murder and suicide.

Who stands to be influenced? Strictly patients with a terminal illness? No. When the sanctity of life erodes, all life is cheapened.  One sector of society gains authority to determine whether others’ lives are valuable enough to exist. Ultimately, it affects everyone – even you and me.

To whom does the idea of euthanasia / assisted suicide appeal? Well, to name a few groups:

• To busy people who don’t want to care for aging parents.
• To insurance and state healthcare agencies who prefer to fund assisted suicide rather than costly life-extending treatment.
• To someone who has a progressive disease, or is depressed, or is struggling financially or in chronic pain.
• Even to someone who is in despair over the future loss of a spouse, as in the case of Sir Edward Downes,

Once we slide further down this slope, the impact upon our lives and freedoms will be devastating.

If ever there was a time we needed to hear from Scott Brodie, it is now.  As I watched the second airing of Larry King’s interview with Kevorkian, six questions came to mind. I emailed them to Scott right away, expecting a typed response. The video response He and Glennis chose, however, is much more illuminating.

If you are too overwhelmed by a season of suffering to be concerned with broader issues at stake, it is understandable.  Scott’s messages below will be just the encouragement and truth you need today. (See also Walking Through the Valley: The Scott Brodie Story.)

Question #1

What has been the progression of your illness?

Brodie Family, Fall 1997

Glennis: “Scott was diagnosed with ALS in the Fall of 1997.” [Scott was given just two to five years to live – thirteen years ago!]  “The symptoms began in his right hand, then traveled up his right arm to the left arm and to his neck.  It has affected his voice, his ability to talk, as well. He is still walking.”

“Scott had to have a feeding tube placed in 2005, five years ago. He is on a liquid diet of canned things or things we can puree and concoct.

“This back brace was about that same year – 2005. It may have been completed in 2006. But Scott walks with this back brace, which goes all the way down to his mid-back. It’s underneath his shirt.  It keeps his head supported. That way he is able to maintain his balance. It gets a little hot. He  can’t really turn his head side to side, but he can move.

“April 1, 2009 he had tracheostomy surgery.  That was a huge, prayerful step in the months and year prior actually. But now a year has passed and he is doing really well.  He has had to fight a reoccurring lung infection.  So that has been the biggest challenge, but we seem to have a God-given way to manage that right now. We praise God for that.

“Scott has no use of hands, which limits him from many things – there are many things he cannot do. No driving, of course. He’s at his computer most of the day, but he types with his toes and operates the mouse with his foot. Most everything has to be done with his foot.

“Sometimes he will spell the letters out if he is on his ventilator (which is over there on that side of the room; It’s a laptop vent). At night and in the morning when he’s over there, he’s not speaking because the cuff is inflated. He can’t speak when that’s up. So he will spell letters with his feet and then I get to interpret…and that’s a lot of fun for me,” she says laughing.

[Natalie: Scott has difficulty swallowing…even saliva.  He went through the whole one-hour interview in 2006 without complications from swallowing or expelling saliva. You may have noticed that in the interview footage there are paper napkins folded between the cushions of the couch, positioned by Glennis for quick access. The napkins were there to use in place of swallowing. Scott never once needed them. Amazing!  Scott hasn’t been able to easily swallow saliva for some time…not without creating a tendency to choke. Even when he could technically swallow food – just for a little taste – after the feeding tube, small bites of food would create too much mucous. He would have to be suctioned.  Years ago, when I was in his home, it was a rarity for him to taste a bite of food, though he could technically swallow.]

Question #2

What symptoms do you have that others may consider grounds for taking their life if they had same symptoms:

Glennis: “The thing about Lou Gehrig’s – it has been a progressive loss. It never levels off. Apart from God’s Divine intervention and healing, that’s the course it would take. It continues to rob the body, so that’s what it’s done over the years.  Scott, what do you think have been the biggest hurdles along the way?”

Scott: “Probably the feeding tube and the trach.”

Glennis: “Those were definitely the biggest. The feeding tube because some people think its artificial nutrition. But it’s really just another access to the stomach. Scott doesn’t have the pleasure of eating and the social aspect of eating – although Scott likes to gather with people when they are here and participate –  but he has to be an observer and eat from his ‘sack lunch.’

“It was hurdle for Scott to use the wheelchair, even though he wasn’t dependent on it.  This was before the feeding tube, when He had lost so much weight. He was 120 pounds at six feet tall. He didn’t have energy or endurance to walk far. So that was a big, big hurdle.

“It was a big hurdle when Scott could no longer work or drive—”

Scott: “Talking,” Scott adds.

Glennis: “That has been the greatest loss – talking. He has gone months without talking. When his cuff is inflated in his trach, within his trachea, he’s not able to push air over the larynx. So there is no use of the voice box. When he is talking, his enunciation is a little hard to understand – “

Scott: “Even for me,” Scott adds.

Glennis: “When Scott sees himself recorded, he doesn’t know what the guy is talking about,” Glennis laughs.

“So yes, there have been a lot of things we’ve had to bring before God and get his grace to know how to continue on, right?

Scott: “Yes.  Amen”

Question #3

Have the losses caused you to feel that your life has lost meaning?

Scott: “They did. But God overcame them through His Word.”

Glennis: “He ministered His Word to you personally and intimately and gave you the-”

Scott: “–hope”

Glennis: “–loved you and gave you the hope to continue on.

Scott: “God does not see as man sees. God sees the heart.

Glennis: “God sees the heart. He’s not impressed by physical stature.”

Scott: “Or your vast knowledge. He sees the heart.”

Glennis: “When you got your diagnosis, I remember, you said–have said–that you weren’t ready. Of course, you were thirty-seven. You weren’t ready to consider dying, but you also didn’t feel prepared to meet your Maker, although you were a believer and gave your life to Christ when you were eighteen. But here you were at thirty-seven and you said, ‘I’m not done.’ You knew God had more. That was really a driving force also – because you didn’t feel that you had accomplished everything that He’d given you to do.”

Scott: “He has a race for me to run.  It was not complete yet. He said, ‘Go back to your race and only look to me – because I am the author and finisher of your race. Do not look at your body. Look to me.’”

Glennis: “Because when you used to look in the mirror and you would look at the losses, that was really devastating.”

Scott: “True.”

Glennis: “Yes.  It really impacted you. Then you used to always say, ‘I’m not not that man in the mirror’ – because you were referring to the fact that God sees who you are in the heart, not the reflection that is illuminated through the mirror and what other people see.”

Question #4:

Do you feel that your life has meaning? Please explain.

Glennis: “Scott continues to have an impact on our family, our friends and those he meets. Frankly, people, even strangers – he draws a lot of attention. He is part of an immediate family, an extended family and he is well loved. Any person has these ties to family. And it means a lot to the people that are close to an individual that has suffering, it means a lot–”

Scott: “But I really don’t suffer.”

Glennis: “You don’t feel that you suffer? Well, most people would call it suffering because you have limitations and you haven’t been able to get – you’re not what’s considered normal, I guess.

“Scott’s life has tried all of us actually, because we have gone through different seasons of having to trust God ourselves – for our security, for our capacity, for the fear that might want to grip us at times, especially at times when things have gotten very scary with his health. We don’t know one day to the next what will happen, but we’ve watched God’s faithfulness. We’ve learned and watched how God has cared and provided and it’s helped us to draw close in our walk with God – to know how much he loves each one of his creation. He’s made them unique and wonderful. Scott is able to minister through his life. As testament, he is able to shine the love of God through himself to others, and he does that with our family. He does that with our friends and also to people that we just meet.

“The contributions Scott makes are countless – just as any individual who is impacting people. But I would say that our children have only benefited because they now have compassion. They serve, they look for people that need help. They are more keen to notice the needs of others. In our family life there is a lot of cooperation because we’re not just the adult figures telling our children what to do. We have asked for their help. They are participants and together this family operates, we need each other. So there’s been an amazing effort from everyone.”

Additional insight from Walking Through the Valley: The Scott Brodie Story

In the 2006 interview, Scott shared about a time that he was tired of fighting and wanted to go to Heaven. God answered him – and in that answer God shows us what value our lives have, no matter our abilities.

In the segment above, Scott and Glennis both mentioned “identifying in Christ.” What does that mean? They answer below in this raw, unedited excerpt from the interview. (Excerpt not included in Walking Through the Valley.)

In his post Walking Because of Jesus, Scott writes,

I think when people see me; they are confronted with the physical manifestations of this disease. They do not see my spirit that is hid in Christ. I always tell my wife that my brace and atrophied body is a disguise or costume I wear but who I really am is underneath the costume and are in my spirit. The Spirit of Christ that lives within me gives my body life and imparts to me the eternal truth of the Word of God. This is how I can be strengthened in the “inner man” affecting my will and what I can believe for.

[Natalie: Scott’s life has value beyond what even he and his family are aware. I know for myself personally, Scott’s faith and perseverance – and frankly his positive attitude – have set an incredible example. His and Glennis' life-examples inspire and challenge me each day. Just editing the video and transcript of this interview taught and ministered to me and centered my priorities right where they need to be - on eternal things. Anxiety, worry and preoccupations all vanished in light of eternity. Their impact is immeasurable!]

Question #5:

If the possibility of Divine healing on earth were taken out of the equation, would you consider assisted suicide? Why not? Would you have considered it in the past? Why not?

Scott: “No – because only God knows the time and I do not want to take that away from Him.

“He just asked me last year [a few weeks before Glennis called 911 and Scott was rushed to ER because of respiratory failure] if I did not get healing, would I still follow Him. I said, ‘Yes, Lord. Live or die, I am Yours.’ So God holds the keys to life and death. Not me. It’s only the grace of God any of us are alive today.”

Glennis: “Last year, Scott did consider the reality that he might [be on his way to heaven]—there was a different time last year before and after his trachestomy surgery, when he thought ‘maybe I’m not going to get my healing’ and thinking ‘I’m going to be going to heaven soon.’ And he was okay with that. There was no fear. He thought, ‘I’ll be with Jesus. No problem. I don’t have to hold onto this.’ Scott really has over and over again laid his life at Jesus’ feet. I think in the early years he really clung to God’s promise of healing and it has kept him very fervent for healing and to be back to the way he was. But now he wants to glorify God however God sees fit.

“Scott decided last year – I remember his prayer – that he had to abide under the shadow of God’s wing and just trust Him that His way is perfect. We had a tough year last year. A lot of weighty things … we thought we had already reviewed them, but I guess you have to come back and reaffirm.”

Scott: “You always have to surrender your life to God because he knows the best plan for your life.”

Glennis: Yes, because doubt comes in and you think, ‘Did we actually [hear correctly]?—God surely you didn’t mean this.’ So I guess we do examine, ‘Okay, this is a new place God. I didn’t bargain for this. I only thought so far into my future, but not this far.’ So we have to keep going back for His grace, for Him to enlarge us for the next step.

Question #6

If you had a friend who came to you and said, I have just been diagnosed with ALS; I want to end my life. What would you say?

Glennis interprets Scott’s words: “Oh I see what you’re saying. If they want to end their life, they’re talking to the wrong guy – because you would just want to encourage them. What would you tell them?“

Scott: “God loves you very much and you are very valuable to Him and to others. And  just because a doctor tells you that you have ALS [or terminal diagnosis], that your life is over, that is not true. You may be alive for years and have meaning and purpose.  So just let God love you.”

25th Wedding Anniversary

Glennis: “Let God love you right where you’re at. Yes, that’s good. I know that for years, all we could do was believe against hope.  Abraham did that. He believed in hope. Against hope, he believed in hope. That was such a stable verse for us. We said, even if we can’t muster the faith to believe much, we can hope that God is good and that He does love us and He has our best interest and His glory in view as these things are transpiring in our lives. We have to draw near to Him to know what to do. So we’ve looked for His guidance. We’ve looked for His wisdom in the therapies that Scott has done, in the steps that we’ve made in our business.

Kylee's (youngest child) Graduation

“We have seen much in the last 13 years! Our wedding anniversary of 25 years was last September. Boy, we wouldn’t have thought that Scott would have seen that day.

“We’ve seen the graduation of our four kids. [Their youngest just graduated this year. She was six years old when Scott was diagnosed and given just two to five years to live.]”

“We’ve seen our daughters play volleyball in college.”

“Jessica [oldest daughter] graduated from college and got married. Scott walked her down the aisle [and danced with her at the reception].”

“Then Jessica became pregnant and we were like, ‘Oh, do we have those nine months? Will Scott see our first grand baby?’ And he did!

“Now [our granddaughter] is a year and a half and she comes and helps her Papa. She likes to help just like my kids like to help and they do what they can. She’s very cute. She comes and brings him a tissue and helps with the little things she can do. It’s so sweet.

“We’ve seen our son be raised up and take over the leadership of our business and we’ve seen expansion of our business into another state, into Arizona.

“So we’ve watched God provide in so many ways. Things that we would’ve though, ‘Okay, there’s going to be devastation. There’s going to be lack. We are going to be in hardship.’ We’re not saying there hasn’t been a measure of those challenges, but as we look back we see, Wow, God has made a way! So we praise God for all He has done.”

Closing Thoughts:

The Dance

Natalie: “A picture is worth a thousand words,” the saying goes. To me, one action of Scott’s speaks as loudly as his profound words. When I see Scott and his family on home video engaging in this simple activity, volumes of truth are conveyed. Much is revealed about how Scott and Glennis have responded to catastrophic circumstances – and in turn, how their children have responded as well.

What is this activity? Dancing. Yes, that’s right! In the face of hopeless circumstances, the Brodies dance. When others would be angry at God, they praise Him. When others could only focus on what has been taken from their lives, the Brodie’s focus on what they’ve been given.  When negativity would encroach on another, the Brodies celebrate the simple joys in life. When many would paste a permanent grimace on their face, laughter constantly fills the Brodie home.

This last video clip briefly shows Scott’s decline from being able to speak normally and hold his head up to experiencing difficulties with both…yet he literally dances through the storm.  This is a must see! It will change your day!!

Questions: As you read the transcript and watched the footage, what was it about the Brodies that made you say, “God, I want to be like that in my difficulties!”? Was it their God-given joy? Strength? Peace? Perspective? Humor? Contentment? Knowledge of Scripture? What seems noticeably absent from your life now that you’ve seen it materialized in Scott and Glennis?

Jenni Murray made a pact with death. The popular presenter of BBC Radio 4′s “Woman’s Hour,” has made plans to end her life if she becomes a burden to her family. Jenni spoke of her pact on a television documentary called “Don’t Get Me Started,” broadcast in Great Britain.

Murray announced on the program that she had entered into a “suicide pact” with two friends who agreed to kill each other if illness or incapacity should leave them unable to commit suicide. Methods they might use include injections or smothering with a pillow.

“When my time comes I want to be able to decide about my destiny,” Murray stated, offering her own “personal rant” about the issues of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and mercy killing. Murray’s two friends, Sally Feldman and Jane Wilton, discussed how they came to this conclusion and then agreed to seal their pact with a formal document of agreement.

In delivering her “personal rant” Murray complained that assisted suicide is illegal in Great Britain because it is demanded by a “religious minority” who have outdated views concerning the value of human life. In addition, she adds, this “religious minority” also holds to the belief that children have a moral obligation to care for elderly parents.

“We’re the generation that moved mountains,” Murray said, “battling first for a woman’s right to choose termination of pregnancy and then to ensure the law is not eroded. We’ve made our mark professionally, take no___  from anybody and have no intention of letting this one pass. We’ve agreed that none of us wants to live with the humiliation of debilitating disease.”

Publicity material for the show says that Murray “does not want to look after her sick and aging mother” who has Parkinson’s disease, “and plans to end her own life when she becomes a burden to those around her.”

In response to the controversy, the network said: “Jenni is angry that, having fought so hard to become liberated and independent, women are now being trapped into caring for dependent parents.”

Without doubt, this portion of Murray’s argument demonstrates the true nature of her pact with death. It is not just about ending her own life; it is about the obligation of others to die and get out of the way, lest they interfere with her own agenda.

Increasingly, the case for “assisted suicide” and euthanasia are moving from claims of a “right” to die to an obligation to die. The argument claims include the fact that an inordinate percentage of medical costs are directed towards the end stages of terminal diseases and the final years of life.[i]

Dispelling the Myths

Kevorkian’s Claim: Assisted suicide is benign. It only affects the lives of those who choose it.

The Truth: The prevalence of assisted suicide impacts us all.

The British magazine Spiked has run several pieces that argue against assisted suicide. In one of them Kevin Yuill writes,

The elderly are the most obvious target of contemporary misanthropy about human numbers and ‘burdens’.  If the population of the world is to be brought down, if costs are to be saved, if ‘quality of life’ is measurable in days and years, the elderly should do the world a favor and die… What this reflects is not only the perverse and miserabilist preoccupation with rationing at a time when we are all getting richer, but the reduction of human life to physical terms. A society that assigns no value or moral worth to human life destroys the meaning of human life and, ironically, the shared basis of that society.”[ii]

In this kind of society, doctors decide who has ‘quality of life’ and who does not. Cowardice is disguised as courage.  The duty to capitalize on life becomes the duty to throw it away.  Human life is reduced to the physical, “trapped within the contours of the body,” writes Yuill. “Human dignity would be reduced to bodily aestheticism.”

Health Insurance Ethical Decisions

If health insurance companies are trying hard to contain costs, what will prevent them from cutting back on medications for palliative care? (Palliative care is “the active, total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment.”)

Someone from Physicians for Compassionate Care called a Health Management Organization (HMO) and asked what their benefit for home palliative care for the terminally ill was. He was shocked when he heard it was only $1000. He testified:

“What is this HMO going to do when that $1000 is gone in a few weeks? When the seriously ill ask what their options are, will the HMO remind the patient that their assisted suicide benefit has not been used yet? This kind of financial incentive for HMOs will inevitable pressure patients to accept lethal prescriptions instead of good medical care. These incentives to offer suicide instead of medical care clearly pose a serious threat to public health and safety.”[iii]

After implementation of Oregon’s assisted suicide law, that state chose to fund assisted suicides for the poor and disabled on its Oregon Health Plan, while cutting needed services for the same patients. The Oregon Health Services Commission did this even though every organization representing the poor and disabled at their hearings objected to funding doctor assisted suicide, because it endangers the poor and disabled. The Oregon Health Plan determines mental health care and provides what treatment it does through HMOs. Contracting mental health clinics or groups are paid in advance per enrolled patient. They can actually profit by failing to deliver care.[iv]

Barbara Wagner

Barbara Wagner, a 64 year old Oregon woman experienced the devastating consequences of legalizing a policy so corrosive to society. Barbara’s lung cancer had been in remission, but her doctors informed her that the disease had returned and she had only months to live.

The retired bus driver vowed to fight the disease so she could spend as long as possible with her family. Even after her doctor warned in 2008 that she had less than six months to live, she refused to give up, pinning all her hopes on a new life-prolonging treatment. But her request for the $4000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her was refused by Oregon’s state-run health plan as being too expensive.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50. Rather than life-extending treatment she was offered life-ending treatment.

“It was horrible,” Wagner told reporters. “I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won’t give you the medication to live.”

‘I told them: “Who do you think you are to say that you will pay for my dying, but you won’t pay for me to possibly live longer?”

‘I am opposed to the assisted suicide law. I haven’t considered it, even at my lowest ebb.’

Hearing of her plight, pharmaceutical company Genentech decided to give her the drug, Tarceva, free for one year. Barbara died in 2008. Her family believes the added stress from the state in desiring to take her life hastened her end.

‘She felt totally betrayed,’ her ex-husband Dennis, 65, said. ‘It comes down to the buck. It’s not about compassion and understanding. The bottom line is that it is all about money and Barbara fell into the middle of it.’

The latest annual report in Oregon indicates that reported assisted-suicide deaths in the eleventh year are 375% greater than those in the first year of legal assisted suicide in Oregon. The bases for assisted suicides include dementia, depression and financial concerns.[v]

What if Barbara had received the $50 lethal dose of medication rather than going to the media. She would have been pressured – murdered – over money. No doubt there were some who chose the alternative. They didn’t go to the media. Precious lives were snuffed out…here in the good old freedom loving United States of America.

Can you believe that the United States is sanctioning murder? Over 50 million unborn babies murdered since Roe v. Wade…and now the culture of death is turning toward the sick, the elderly, the disabled and vulnerable.

Beloved, you and I have the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We have the antidote.

Questions: Are you sitting on the antidote or sharing it? How much time this week have you spent in prayer for our nation?

Related Articles:

• We Know Jack: The case against assisted suicide, #1

• Walking Through the Valley: The Scott Brodie Story
  Kevorkian went to prison for the assisted suicide/murder of a man with ALS. Meet Scott Brodie, a man with ALS who has chosen life.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/1004/suicide-sisters

[ii] http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4835/

[iii]Physicians for Compassionate Care, “Testimony,” Hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., July 14, 1998.

[iv] http://www.ncccusa.org/nmu/mce/suicide.html;http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/deadczar.htm, http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/pdf/Eleven_Years_of_PAS_OR_08_09.pdf

[v] http://www.internationaltaskforce.org/pdf/Eleven_Years_of_PAS_OR_08_09.pdf

How Hollywood’s poster boy is endangering your life and the lives of your loved ones.

I wasn’t feeling well, yet persevered through Wal-Mart to buy five goldfish for my dad for Father’s Day. Two days earlier, he handed my mother a list of items he wanted from the grocery store – from Kroger, mind you.  Not Wal-Mart. On his list were toiletries and five gold fish. Mom presumed he meant goldfish crackers, not goldfish for the decorative pond in the backyard. You see, my dad isn’t the caretaker you want if you’re a goldfish who wants to live a long life.  He never intends for the fish to die. They just don’t seem to live long.  A heavy rain comes, the water overflows, the fish swim out and die.  Or, he removes the fish from the pond to protect them while he sprays pesticide in the yard…and forgets and sprays it above the temporary location of the fish too.  Careless mistakes such as these have cost many poor fish their lives.  (How did I ever survive to adulthood? Thankfully, my dad was more careful when we were kids…hopefully!)

I am the poor soul charged with the task of removing fish from their happy home at Wal-Mart and delivering them to an untimely death at the hands of my dad.  I think I purchased the last round of fish last August for Dad’s birthday. I assure you, this time, no small amount of razzing took place before I delivered more goldfish to what might be a frightful fate.  The last time I bought fish for dad, I purchased one large goldfish with a few small ones. As I walked through the store, the large fish swam around viciously, butting his head hard against the plastic bag, nearly knocking the bag from my hand.  He kept this up the entire thirty-minute drive home.  I consoled him and talked to him, assuring him he was going to a good home.  But this time? No sweet assurances, only prayers for the poor fish. Or rather, prayers for my dad’s diligence as their caretaker.

Tired and a bit weak, I needed to rest when I got home from Wal-Mart.  I flipped past Larry King and was appalled by what I heard. Here I was, sweating the fate and long life of a few goldfish while the value of the human beings was being tossed about as carelessly as that of a few goldfish!

Larry King was interviewing Jack Kevorkian, Dr. Death.  In the interview, Kevorkian’s assisted suicide of human beings was repeatedly called an “act of mercy.” The 1998 killing of Thomas Youk, a man diagnosed with ALS, was also termed an “act of mercy,” though Kevorkian was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 10-25 years in prison for Youk’s death.

Rather than an agent of death, Kevorkian now seems to be portrayed as a knight on a white horse, rescuing the human race from wasted, unbearable pain and suffering.  After serving eight years in prison, he is now apparently deemed a hero by many – one who suffered for our freedoms, our rights.

In true Hollywood fashion, no matter the degree of evil, violence or immorality portrayed, the acts are depicted as harmless, beautiful, enticing, disarmed and somehow even rational.  The April HBO movie of Kevorkian’s life entitled, “You Don’t Know Jack,” appears from the trailers to be no exception. Al Pacino plays the former pathologist who helped 130 patients end their lives over a 10-year period before being sent to prison in 1999 for second-degree murder.  In one of the trailers, the movie actors – above light-hearted, upbeat, classical music – describe their take on Kevorkian, the movie and their roles:

Al Pacino: “I didn’t know that he [Kevorkian] was as committed as he was. I didn’t know that he was as intelligent as he was…I didn’t know that he was as humorous, because of course the intelligence comes to humor. I would like to be that smart. Here was an opportunity to play someone that is smart; it’s fun. That’s what being an actor is about.”

As several actors expound on Kevorkian’s creativity, Pacino adds, “The paintings, the writings, the music, teaching himself Japanese while he’s in a court of law” – admiring Dr. Death’s many talents.

Brenda Vaccaro: “He’s astoundingly bright and funny.”

Neal Nicol: He’s a character with a capital “C.”

Geoffrey Fieger: “Jack is an extremely creative guy.”

Susan Sarandon: “He is outrageous and at the same time very principled. “

John Goodman: It’s interesting and a lot lighter than you would think. [Neal] believes in jack..Jack has a purpose and Neal wants to hitch onto that.

Danny Huston: He’s certainly a rich character.

According to Pacino, viewers “don’t know this guy.” He is “more than meets the eye…[You Don’t Know Jack is] a portrait of a zealot. I don’t think we see that often.”

Sarandon said that people who dedicate themselves to a cause at the expense of anything else in their lives “are really fascinating people.”

The devaluing of human life, specifically the lives of those whom Kevorkian took – well, it is deemed “interesting and a lot lighter than you would think.” It has admirable qualities. In short, it’s beautiful.

The Beautiful Side of Evil

Many years ago I read a book called The Beautiful Side of Evil. When it comes to assisted suicide, assisted killing, the subject matter is slightly different from the book, but the inference is the same.  Pure evil is made beautiful and palatable…and “reasonable.” Hollywood & CNN’s attempt to glamourize assisted killing is like depicting the gas chambers of Auschwitz as upscale assisted living facilities in Florida. This beautification of evil is appalling.

The movie title “You Don’t Know Jack” means ‘Those of you who are pro-life, you don’t know anything.”  Actually, it’s those on the other side who are in need of instruction.

Next week HBO airs a documentary of Jack Kevorkian’s life called “Kevorkian.”  The documentary synopsis on HBO’s website says that “Kevorkian,”

paints an intimate and surprising portrait of this complex man…Kevorkian is the story of a man whose compassion and vision have largely been misunderstood…One journalist compares him to an ‘Old Testament prophet.’…He’s very disagreeable, hard to take, nobody you want over for a weekend, but somebody who tells us some unpleasant truths.[i]

In other words, “Dr. Death has a few rough edges, but don’t let that keep you from the truths he speaks.” What!?

Let’s take a look at a few real truths.

Right to Die

Kevorkian’s claim: a person is born with the right to take their own life.

The truth: The Bible teaches that we are made in the image of God and therefore, every human life is sacred (Genesis 1:26). Psalm 139:13-16 teaches us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God knit us together in our mother’s womb. Our lives are precious and important to Him.

Scripture clearly states that God is sovereign over life and death.

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me, I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39).

God ordained all of our days before even one of them came to be (see Psalm 139:16). He has appointed a time for our death.

• “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
• “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).
• “Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? (Ecclesiastes 7:17).

To assist someone in committing suicide is to commit murder and this breaks God’s unequivocal commandment in Exodus 20:13. “You shall not commit murder” includes self-murder.

Quality of Life

Kevorkian’s claim: When discussing his health with Larry King, 83-year-old Kevorkian described his health as “weak” as the result of an infection acquired while in prison. When asked how he deals with his own death mentally, Kevorkian said he deals with it like everyone else: “When you are feeling well you hate to leave it,” Kevorkian answered. “Life is nice. But when you’ve got affliction that is so persistent and torturous, then you change your mind.”

In other words, the “truth” about quality of life, as Kevorkian sees it, is that one’s value and purpose on earth is measured strictly upon the basis of how they feel and what they are able to accomplish.

The truth: Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus demonstrated a quality of life that was abundant even through his suffering and dying.

Quality of life is not determined by the physical abilities one does or does not possess. A study reported that long-term spinal cord injured (SCI) survivors report a good or very good quality of life, even when facing major challenges. One study of survivors injured more than 23 years indicates that over 76% of the participants rated their quality of life as either good or excellent. The level of injury and degree of paralysis had little effect on their quality of life. After a catastrophic injury or illness, people usually re-prioritize their lives. They often express great joy and gratefulness for life itself. Research with both disabled and non-disabled populations shows that quality of life is an internal concept; it is more dependent upon how we view life than what we have.[ii]

In truth, quality of life has nothing to do with temporal circumstances – with what our bodies can do, how we feel, what material possessions we have.

Stuart Cureton

True “quality” in life is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is why troubling circumstances can be so sweet. They cause us to grasp the One who is the only true quality in life – Jesus Christ. Along with His strength, He gives us His eternal view of life. The result? Contentment. Peace. Joy.

Stuart Cureton has been in a wheelchair for 30 years following a car accident in 1980. Stuart says, “I am very grateful [for the accident]…There is a purpose,” he says, “a purpose of encouraging others and showing them what they’re missing…especially those who don’t know the love of Christ.”

Autonomy

Kevorkian’s claim: It’s your life, your decision. Do what feels best for you. Disability, discomfort, depression and illness prevent you from enjoying life and contributing to those around you; there is no point in remaining here and suffering. It’s your body, your ”right’ to die.

The truth: Our lives – no matter the state of our health or abilities – affect everyone around us.

• “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone” (Romans 14:7).

My grandmother spent twenty years confined to bed. In her last years here on earth, she could hardly be turned in bed without breaking bones. Mama Rie spent countless hours, weeks, months, years in virtually one position and immeasurable, constant pain. Although she never lost her gracious disposition, she did at times get weary and question the reason why God left her here so long. (This was during the years of my intense suffering.)  My mother would remind her that God worked through her prayers for me and the other grandchildren. What Mama Rie didn’t realize is that the sheer fact that she was persevering caused me to persevere.  I would think of her example, her endurance in spite of unbelievable suffering, and be encouraged to persevere as well. She wasn’t living to herself alone, but for me, for the rest of the family and for those who knew her and were taught by her sweet, godly disposition in the face of immeasurable suffering.

The truth: Our life – neither its beginning nor its end – is ours to govern.

• “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:7-8).
• “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (I Corinthians 6:19b-20).

The voices of Voluntary Euthanasia societies pushed to the forefront of society 40 years ago. Contemporary fascination with assisted suicide comes from recent trends in thought that, by rejecting religious understandings of humanity, have come to increasingly identify human life in physical terms, within the parameters of the body.

The idea of personal autonomy – personal rights – and the movement to legalize assisted suicide have descended from 1970s feminism. Nothing better demonstrates this than the 1973 publication of Our Bodies, Our Selves, which led to the extension of demands for bodily autonomy. The exposition of previously private areas of life, like sexuality, also exposed death to wider scrutiny, especially after the publication of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s On Death and Dying in 1969.

The 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision added fuel to the autonomy fire. In this decision it was determined that the constitution (although it doesn’t literally state it) guarantees the right to privacy. Suddenly, a woman’s “personal right” to choose overrode an unborn child’s right to life.  Since then, we have slid further down the slope. Now autonomy is an overriding right – a person doesn’t have to be terminally ill anymore to have a doctor kill them.

Historian Ian Dowbiggin notes that in the 1970s ‘[e]uthanasia ceased being defined as active mercy killing, with its disturbing overtones of coercion and social usefulness, and increasingly became viewed as personal freedom from unwanted interference in one’s own life’.[iii] It has been this banner of bodily autonomy under which modern assisted suicide – voluntary euthanasia – emerged.

The Value of Suffering

Kevorkian’s claim: In having a right to die, people have a right not to suffer.

What the members of the right-to-die societies seek is not so much the right to die as the right not to suffer.

Although the British magazine Spiked is not religious, and certainly not traditional, it has run several pieces against physician assisted suicide. In one of these pieces Kevin Yuill writes, from a secular perspective,

One can no longer argue that human suffering is certain and preordained without being judged conscienceless, even inhuman. In the past, suffering was seen as part of life, a trough that made the peaks appear higher. There no longer appears to be any reason for suffering, given the apparent meaninglessness of life; all suffering now appears unnecessary and thus is condemned.[iv]

The truth: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

For those who know Jesus Christ and have yielded their lives to Him, suffering is packed with meaning and purpose…and joy! (see Pure Joy.) Perseverance must be allowed to finish its work.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him (James 1:12).

We are more than conquerors IN all things, not by being removed from them.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:35, 37).

Even though many who are choosing assisted suicide do not have a terminal illness, what if we do? How do we face the process of dying?

³⁶As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long…^{” 37}No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

We can face death as more than a conqueror. Neither fear nor pain can separate us from God’s love. As we walk through the uncertainties of this life, God’s love and grace will be measured out to us in the exact time at the exact amount we need them.

Scripture says that “those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good” (I Peter 4:19). We commit ourselves to the One who made us, who determined in advance the day we would be born and the day we would die.  We submit our lives to Him, to His authority and trust Him to infuse us with His strength, which is “unyielding and impenetrable” (see Philippians 4:13, Psalm 62:4-5). We do not try to be like God and choose to take our own lives.

God does not allow us to be tested beyond what we can bear. But with the trial, “he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (I Corinthians 10:13). He is faithful to provide a way for us to endure, to “escape” as one translation says. The escape is not death. The way out is His Word – His promises and His Spirit breathing them fresh into our situation moment by moment. The “way out” may come one moment in a strictly spiritual sense – God breathing upon His Word and reminding us that He cares. Another moment it may be relief through medical treatment or an encouraging visit from a friend. Regardless the tangible manifestation, God provides a way out by providing help through His Spirit. We commit our lives to God, trust Him and receive His enabling.

Terminally Ill

Kervorkian’s claim: The people whose suicide he assisted were terminally ill or hopeless. His interests were purely altruistic. His goal was solely the well-being of the patient.

The truth: Over three-quarters of the 130 people Kevorkian helped commit suicide did not have a terminal illness. Many of them were in the early stages of illnesses like MS or other neuro-muscular diseases. Some had spinal cord injuries…or non-life threatening disease such as chronic arthritis.

Bioethics attorney Wesley J. Smith is disgusted by the beautification of a culture of death. “Jack Kevorkian assisted the suicides of at least 130 people–most of whom were not terminally ill and five of whom were not sick according to autopsies–and murdered one,” Smith said. “He ripped out the kidneys of one of his victims after death, that of a former cop who had become quadriplegic from a gunshot wound.”

Smith asserts that Kevorkian’s ultimate goal was “obitiatry,” the experimenting on living human beings before they were euthanized.[v]

Kevorkian was intrigued by the act of dying. He proposed that medical experiments be conducted on death-row prison inmates while they were still alive. An article in the examiner states,

“His views were presented in a paper to the American Association for the Advancement of Science where he explained the role condemned inmates would be providing as a service to humanity before their execution. From here on out, his peers began referring to him as “Dr. Death” and he began his lifelong crusade for assisted suicide.”[vi]

Kevorkian is proud to be known as “Dr. Death.” Our culture is quickly becoming a culture of death. In this culture, death is to be welcomed and those who are less worthy of living— by whatever standard of judgment — should die and get out of our way. They should be removed from our medical bills, our consciences and our busy schedules and agendas. Kevorkian is being portrayed by Hollywood and liberal media as an angel of mercy. In reality, he is a mirror image of the darkness of the human soul.

Albert Mohler writes,

As a pathologist, Kevorkian called for medical experiments to be done on prisoners. Later, at Pontiac (Mich.) General Hospital, Kevorkian was seen transfusing blood from cadavers into living patients. He has praised Nazi doctors for their concentration camp experiments, championed suicide, and called for the creation of death centers known as “obitoria,” where those desiring death could be served with clinical efficiency.[vii]

In the 1960’s Kevorkian took art lessons and produced a series of gory paintings on death, featuring body parts, cannibalism, and genocide. The HBO trailer for “You Don’t Know Jack” frames these paintings in a setting of intrigue and creativity…mixed with a little eccentricity. Not evil. Not darkness. Not the twisted expressions of a depraved mind. No. Instead, they are the odd choice of an intelligent, talented, creative but eccentric man. What an atrocity! The literal frame of one of his paintings was colored with blood from blood banks, mixed with Kevorkian’s own. “People may wince at some of my paintings, but nobody has yet denied their forceful accuracy,” Kevorkian said.

Kevorkian’s experimentations with death have plummeted the world down a slippery, slimy slope. No longer must one be terminally ill to request death on demand.

Death on Demand

Sir Edward Downes, former conductor of the British Royal Opera, made a suicide pact with his wife of 54 years.  They drank liquid poison that caused them both to die.  The story of their death is described in British papers with as much romance as their long marriage.

Sir Edward and Joan Downes

“They drank a small quantity of clear liquid and then lay down on the beds next to each other. They wanted to be next to each other when they died. They held hands across the beds. Within a couple of minutes they were asleep and they died within ten minutes.”

Their son who watched them die called it a “civilized way to end your life.” They “died peaceably and under circumstances of their own choosing,” he said.

Joan, a former ballerina, was 74 years old when she died. She had recently been diagnosed with terminal liver and pancreatic cancer and given a short time to live. Sir Edward, though 85 and in failing health, was not terminally ill. Assisted suicide is illegal in Britain, so they traveled to Zurich, Switzerland to a clinic called Dignitas that will arrange for a patient’s death by barbiturate for a fee of about $700 per patient.

“Dad felt he was physically winding down,” their son said. “There were all sorts of things he wanted to do but couldn’t.” Although Sir Edward was virtually blind and had lost some of his hearing, this hardly constitutes a terminal diagnosis. A ‘clinic’ will deliver death on demand because there are things you want to do, but can’t?!

The real motive for Downes was fear of loneliness.  According to friends, their lives were tightly intertwined. In a British news report, Antonio Pappano, Music Director for the Royal Opera House calls the Downes’ deaths a “beautiful gesture of support for each other.” He says he will miss them but adds, “I don’t think either one of them could have lived without the other.”

Downes faced the prospect of life without his soul mate of 54 years, but sorrow and future loneliness is not grounds for a doctor to assist in a suicide. Clearly, “death on demand” is okay to many, no matter the reason.

Slippery Slope

Kevorkian’s claim: Religion and medical ethics are ‘depriving’ individuals of the most basic right – the right to die. Exercising this right is totally benign. It will liberate society.

The truth: The freedom to die will soon become the obligation to die.

In these days of Social Security and Medicare debt, healthcare reform and the push to cut medical costs, this is downright scary! TIME magazine quoted President Obama as saying “Those at the end of their lives are accounting for 80% of the total healthcare bill.” Critics of President Obama’s government healthcare plan voiced concern over the probability of bottom-line watching – government bureaucrats making life-and-death decisions over who may or may not receive expensive medical care (as is already being done in Great Britain).

If we are going to change the way we spend money at the end of our lives, it will be by removing a feeding tube, denying life-saving, life-extending treatment…and sliding at a feverish pace down this slippery slope into a culture of death. The time is quickly coming when a right-to-die will become a duty to die.

We don’t want to believe that thinking reminiscent of the Nazis deeming people “life not worthy of  living” can actually happen here. Yet doing so ignores the fact that an insidious culture of death already exists here and has infected America for several decades.  From Planned Parenthood -  which supports the murder of 1.5 million unborn children each year – to groups like the Hemlock Society – which have successfully fought to legalize doctor-assisted suicide in several states – we already deem some lives “not worthy of living.”  Movies such as Million Dollar Baby, where murdering a severely injured person is viewed as an heroic and loving act, promote the culture of death. In the movie The Hours, characters are praised for having the “courage” to end their lives when they become a burden to their loved ones.[viii]

In Oregon physician-assisted suicide is legal. One-third of those who chose assisted suicide in Oregon last year stated the burden on their families as the reason they wanted to die. The beautification of this evil makes it tempting…almost reasonable. Hollywood’s glamorous, sly, upbeat portrait of Kevorkian almost pulls the wool over the eyes of Christians. The lives of those who chose assisted suicide seem so pathetic, so miserable, so deserving of this “act of mercy.”

I was hesitant to even cite the HBO source above, concerned that someone might go to their website, watch the trailers and be deceived. It’s nothing but trickery packaged by millions of dollars, Hollywood’s top artists and award winning actors. No longer is the enemy content to simply ask as he did of Eve, “Did God really say?” Now he is cloaking his lies in media blitzes, Hollywood glamour and slick subtlety.

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour [in this case, literally]. Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9a).

We cannot be deceived by the so-called rational arguments that people have the autonomy to choose their death.  We have a responsibility to protect the weak and vulnerable in our society. … God created us equal. None of us should be at another’s disposal. At such a time, we should be fighting to safeguard the rights of the vulnerable and weak. When we allow their rights to be diminished, we jeopardize everyone’s rights.

Questions: What can you do to turn the tide on the culture of death? How will you speak up? How are you protecting the weak and vulnerable in your family, your church, your community?

Related Posts:

• We Know Jack: Dr. Death deals a blow to American’s health care coverage, #2
  
• Walking Through the Valley:The Scott Brodie Story

Kevorkian went to prison for the assisted suicide of a man with ALS. Meet Scott Brodie, a man with ALS who has chosen life.

[ii] S. Charlifue, “Quality of Life,” Phases: SCI & Aging Vol 3, No 2 p 1.

[iii] http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/207/

[iv] http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/207/

[v] http://www.lifenews.com/bio2948.html

[vi] http://www.examiner.com/x-29099-Grand-Rapids-Public-Health-Examiner~y2010m4d22-HBOs-Jack-Kevorkian-film-spotlights-assisted-suicide

[vii] http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/07/16/dr-death-on-prime-time-the-slippery-slope-toward-murder/

[viii] Idea from Diane Singer: http://www.breakpoint.org/the-center/columns/changepoint/12967-the-death-of-death