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My Dad and David

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By Dan Amos

The Sunday after Easter, my family and friends of my mom and dad gathered for a memorial for my dad. Mom has a certificate that says he died two weeks earlier, but we know that he was healed on that day and is more alive than ever. But this was not a certain conclusion – it was a nail-biter up until the end. I thought about this again this last Sunday when Martin spoke on David’s struggle in Psalm 139.

Dad was what the world would call a good man. Generations of kids remember him as the man who would make time for them and play with them, often when their own dads were gone or too busy. He retired from the Navy after 20 years serving on ships including the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. He served on the ground in Vietnam, and those memories haunted him until Alzheimer’s took all of his memories away.

The father I knew as a child took me to church. I even found a picture of him sitting at home reading his Bible. Dad was not an “up front” kind of person who was comfortable speaking in public, but I have a distinct memory of him standing in church at a Sunday evening service and testifying about what God was doing in his life. I don’t remember the content, but the image is clear. I also remember how we would mercilessly tease him about his off-key singing voice that I heard in church. I would love to hear that voice again!

However, he was haunted by secrets. No one knows what they were, but he occasionally would give us a glimpse by saying they were too awful to be forgiven. He ran from God and tried to hide. For most of his adult life he let the guilt of something keep him from knowing the peace of God’s forgiveness. This caused in me uncertainty – not about whether God would reject me, but about whether I could reject Him. I was somewhere between the Arminian and Calvinist positions and I was certain Dad needed to know where he stood. But he would not talk to us about it.

As awful as Alzheimer’s is, with the mental, emotional and physical destruction it causes, we have to see it as a blessing for my dad. The disease broke down his resistance until someone (who I believe was led by the Spirit) challenged him to make a conscious decision about his standing with God. Dad followed that up the next Sunday by responding to an altar call, and finally found the forgiveness that had always been waiting for him. Not long after, he made a public declaration of his faith while being baptized.

David sinned greatly, but he recognized he could not run from his sin. He repented. He was a man after God’s own heart because he chose to repent and receive forgiveness. I have the hope we get through the Gospel that my dad is in heaven with Jesus. Because he bowed his knee in this life, he was given new life. It didn’t have to end this way. He could have kept running, and the outcome would have been unthinkable. I wish he had chosen sooner – 40 years sooner – but the dad I loved did finally choose, and it is well.

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Walking Away Sad

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By Hannah Comerford

Through the white picture-frame windows, closed by curlicue latches, I can see a short iron gate, bushes and hedges in various shades of green, and a tree bare from winter and covered in ivy. Birds sing. I have tea at my desk. I’m sitting in the home of C. S. Lewis, my hero of both the faith and literature. This room once belonged to his stepson, Douglas Gresham, and now I’m living here for two weeks.

It’s all more than I could have hoped for.

But what if I could give it all up? What if I could turn back the time, drop out of the master’s program I’ve worked so hard to be a part of, give up every precious experience I’m gaining in this beautiful land? I would do this all and more for the one thing I’ve desired for years.

The rich young man in the Gospel of Matthew asked, “What must I do to obtain eternal life?” He left sorrowful because the price was too high.

My problem isn’t so much with price. Through deaths of loved ones, loss of health, and multiple moves, I am not as scared to give things up as I once was. Nor do I have a problem seeing what I can do for eternal life, for I know that, as a believer in Christ’s death and resurrection and payment for my sins, I already have eternal life.

No, my question is both more and less holy. On bad days, I see the children others have been given and ask, “What must I give to become a mother?”

If I give up my career as an editor, my journey toward a master’s degree, the health I’ve worked to maintain, would I then be able to earn this privilege? Perhaps I haven’t prayed hard enough or long enough. Maybe I just need to hurry up and learn the lesson God has for me so He can finally bless me.

My namesake prayed to the Lord and received a son, the prophet Samuel. Why did God answer her and not me? Was it because she bargained with God, promising to give up her child to be a servant in the temple if only the Lord would provide the infant? If I, too, bargain, will I obtain what I seek?

On these bad days, I walk away sad, for I cannot obtain the prize I so desperately want.

The rich young man and I have different questions, yet our problem is the same: we don’t recognize the true prize. It is not eternal life or motherhood or any other blessing—those are gifts given freely above and beyond our life with God.

The true prize was sitting in front of the rich young man. The answer lay in the heart behind Hannah’s prayer in the temple. And it’s free to me and to all believers in Christ.

The rich young man left sad because he failed to see that a relationship with Christ was worth more than all his possessions—and even more than eternal life. Hannah received her answer to prayer because her ultimate goal wasn’t just to be a mother; she wanted the opportunity to worship the Lord by giving Him an offering worth more than the mandatory sacrificial lambs. If she had valued her son more than the Lord, she would not have kept her promise. Instead, she took her blessing as an opportunity to praise the Lord through sacrifice and prayer.

When you’re in love with a person, you’re willing to give up your time, money, and plans in order to be with them. As a wife, you hold dear the engagement ring your husband gave you, but you would give it up if it could somehow save your beloved’s life. Your relationship with the person is worth far more than what they give you.

When we place our ultimate hope, love, and satisfaction in the Lord, we can recognize that anything more than a relationship with Him is like that engagement ring—added grace, blessings from the kind heart of a Father. We can enjoy these things because we know they are gifts from our Father, but we can also willingly lay them down, for they are not the source of our joy.

Perhaps, like I do, you long for a good thing that God hasn’t chosen to give you. Or perhaps God has blessed you with the desires of your heart—family, health, financial provision, etc. Maybe you’re worried that these desires, whether fulfilled or not, can become more desirable than Jesus, that you will become the rich young man. Take heart! As the young man left, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. . . . With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

On the bad days when we long for things more than we long for Christ, and on the good days when we find our joy in our relationship with Christ first and in His blessings second, may our prayer continue to be that God would do the miraculous and make our hearts long after Him.

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Scary Things!

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By Pastor Martin Schlomer

When I was a young child, I lived in a 100-year-old house that had a large, dark basement with a huge furnace. In the far corner, there was a room where the early homeowners stored coal for the furnace. It was a dark, wet, drafty, and terrifying room with no windows and a large, heavy door. My brothers would dare me to descend the long flight of stairs without a flashlight, through the basement, around the old, noisy furnace, and into the coal room, and stay there as long as I could.

It was terrifying! There were other times when I’d venture into this coal room, but with a flashlight — and while it was still scary, it wasn’t nearly as terrifying. Shining a light made all the difference!

In a few weeks, we will begin shining a light into what most people consider to be a very dark, lonely, and terrifying room. We will begin dealing with the issue of sexual abuse. For many women and men, sexual abuse has been a horrifying part of their lives and they’ve never told anyone. It is a reality they keep hidden behind thick walls of guilt and shame. It has sabotaged their walk with Jesus, their marriages and many other relationships.

On April 21, from 9:30 a.m. to noon, Elim will host our first Hope & Healing seminar, called “Beginning Conversations.” We will take a careful look at the scope of sexual abuse in our culture.

Then on Friday evening, May 4 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 5 from 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Elim will host an “Intensive Workshop” that will help people begin the journey toward hope and healing. Both seminars will be a very interactive time, as trauma and sexual abuse counselors Shonna Porter and Mary Jane Apple guide and facilitate our discovery and healing process.

Why is this so important? Why do we need to go there? Wouldn’t it be better to keep that room closed and locked? Absolutely not! When Jesus started His ministry, He began by walking through 40 days of hell on earth. He confronted the Devil on his turf! Shortly after He emerged victorious, He entered the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath. He stood up and read from Isaiah,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19,21)

Then He said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” THANK YOU, JESUS! These are words filled with hope! Jesus longs to shine the light of the hope of the Gospel into those dark rooms where we keep the terrifying experiences hidden and locked away. When we do this, we shackle ourselves to the trauma of those experiences, and we become their captives. This is why we’re hosting these seminars and creating pathways following the seminars to help people walk toward freedom.

Is this a scary journey? Yes! But here is the hope: There is freedom for those willing to take this journey!

And there is yet more good news! Because this is so important to nurturing passionate followers of Jesus, last Tuesday evening, the elders committed to making the Intensive Workshop free to Elim attenders and their families! All you need to do is register at ElimEFC.org/Hope and follow the instructions.

In addition, we have generous individuals who are eager to provide scholarships to anyone outside of Elim who cannot afford to pay the advertised cost of the seminar. All they need to do is register at ElimEFC.org/Hope and check the box designated “Request scholarship.”

Please, please, pray for this event! We want the Spirit of our Lord to be powerfully present! We want to see the “release of the captives … and to set free those who are oppressed.”

 

 

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