My physician’s words choked the air out of the already masked hospital room: “Anything you need to say to those you love, I suggest that you do it tonight.”  We understood the magnitude of his statement: it was time to “call in the family,” COVID-era version.  The subsequent conversations via video calls were no less painful than in-person visits. For the next 24 hours, Laurie and I stood at the threshold of the mystery of forever.  These writings reflect some of the lessons we learned. They are not meant to be prescriptive for everyone; instead, they are descriptive of our personal experiences only.  If they offer you hope, then our intent in sharing these has been accomplished. 

To read more about what led up to the doctor’s recommendation, click here for The Backstory. 

It would be 24 hours before Laurie and I would know that the most delicate part of the high-risk procedure was successful.  We spent that time confronting difficult speculations, processing unexpected realizations, and learning God-inspired lessons, all of which have forever altered our thoughts and actions. 

If I were to sum up my reflections that day in one primary truth, it would be this: love God and love others. These words eclipsed all others that crossed my mind.

Jesus said it this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Admittedly, part of me wishes that God had unveiled some groundbreaking revelation to me about some age-old question of faith. What if I had come through that experience with divine insight into the authentic eschatological timeline, or with a definitive explanation of the origin and power of evil? What if I had direct counsel from God regarding whether or not Jesus would wear a mask!?

Instead, the most important word I received was one that had been at the forefront throughout much of my ministry.

During my last pastorate, the church building had six majestic columns facing the busy thoroughfare of Fifth Avenue in downtown Huntington, West Virginia.  These historical, landmark columns have served as pillars of beauty for many decades.  To our congregation, however, they stood for something greater: they were symbols of our mission as a church.  The two outermost columns represented our primary calling to love God and love others.  We sought to frame our life as a church between these two mandates of love.

The familiarity of these two commands notwithstanding, a different part of Jesus’s words surfaced repeatedly during our 24-hour journey.  I kept hearing His phrase, “the second is like it.”

Previously I had focused mostly on the two distinct instructions, love God and love others.  But I came to realize that when Jesus connected the two loves with the phrase, “the second is like it,” He altered these commands forever. As it turns out, Jesus was not just providing a smooth segue from the first commandment to the second. Instead, He used a word that evolved from the Greek that means “together.” One could read it as “the second is together with it.”  He connected the two directives together so that loving God was united with loving others. His word choice suggests that we cannot obey one mandate and ignore the other; they come together as a set. We cannot choose either to love God or to love others; instead, the requirement is both to love God and to love others. They may appear as two commands, but they form one simple truth.

John later expounded this idea in a letter: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20).  As I was raised in a household where we were not allowed to say “hate” or “liar,” John’s word choices have always impressed upon me how serious a transgression this is. One love without the other negates both.

Why is loving others such a clear reflection of loving God? Perhaps it is because we are God’s children.  Most parents understand this mindset: if you mistreat my child, you mistreat me.  The same is true for our Father: if we malign one of His children, then we malign Him.

Or could it be that the second command is like the first because God is providing a way to calculate our love for Him? We say we love God, but how do we know that our love is sufficiently pleasing to Him? Do we measure our love by church attendance, Bible reading, praying, or some other spiritual exercise? When Jesus unites love for God and love for others, He is giving us an appropriate spiritual gauge. Our love for others quantifies our love for God.

Jesus further refined this idea by insisting that our love for others cannot be mere lip service. It is tangible, like serving a meal to the hungry, offering a drink to the thirsty, providing home for the houseless, clothing the cold stranger, checking in on the sick and the shackled (see Matthew 25:31-40). Every person, whether they be our neighbor, our enemy, or our stranger, are opportunities to express our love to God by the way we treat them. 

How painful it must be to God when we essentially dismiss our professed love for Him by planting our feet in self-righteous hate toward one of His children.  Even more so, imagine His heartache when we make the audaciously arrogant assumption that He blesses our enmity toward others. How dare we claim divine authority to treat others unlovingly!  We cannot love God and not love others.  We cannot shout praises to Him, while simultaneously shouting at each other. 

Confession: I found it extremely easy to love both God and others as I confronted the prospect of meeting my Maker face to face during those 24 hours.  Hanging in life’s balance, I was willing to love anyone if it demonstrated to God that I loved Him.  This included loving the wandering patient from down the hall, who several times a day parked her wheelchair just outside my door so she could yell inappropriately at the nurses!  I loved the individuals who drew my blood every morning, long before it felt reasonable to be awake, realizing that their morning had started much earlier than mine!  If loving God meant loving everyone, well, then I was all in during my tenuous timeline. 

However, on this side of the hospital stay, the connection of loving God and loving others is a much greater challenge.  A few days after the 24 hours passed, I was discharged back into the divisive orbit of planet earth, where red and blue political perspectives end relationships, where selfish decisions break families, where skin color blinds us to what we all share in common, where arguments over masks dissolve the strongest bonds, where digital communication offers faceless opportunities to wound others, and where love for others is an honorable, but expendable, virtue.

It is in these times that God’s people must rise above the divide and embrace this one simple truth. If we claim to love God, then “the second is like it.”

May who we are more clearly reflect Whose we are.

_____

As my illness progresses, I am deeply grateful to my wife Laurie for her willingness to take my ideas and meld them into this readable form.  Also, our daughter Katherine has contributed her excellent editorial skills, and our son Preston has provided his creative graphic arts talents.  Thank you, family.

The Backstory

My physician’s words choked the air out of the already masked hospital room: “Anything you need to say to those you love, I suggest that you do it tonight.” 

I was scheduled for a procedure the following day to address extensive blood clots threateningly near my heart.  Menacing clots had formed throughout my torso, legs, and lung; but this 5 cm clot was especially worrisome because of its size and location.  Lodged both above and below a previously inserted IVC filter, the clot was breaking loose, and already traveling through my heart and into my lung.

I knew the gravity of my current reality; seven years prior, I had lived through multiple pulmonary emboli.  I was blessed to have survived so far, but the hours ahead would be critical to staying that way. 

My wife Laurie and I both understood the magnitude of my compassionate doctor’s words: it was time to “call in the family,” Covid-era version.  Since only Laurie was allowed in my hospital room, our conversations with loved ones during the hours to come would have to be virtual. 

For the next 24 hours, Laurie and I stood at the threshold of the mystery of forever.  During that time, we walked through a wide range of emotions and realizations and awakenings—experiences that continue to reshape our perspectives on much of life.  Those hours have reformed our worldview in most every way. 

Not long ago, Laurie suggested that I share some of the lessons we learned, as they may be helpful to some.  I hope you find these lessons comforting, yet challenging; familiar, yet new; shared, yet personal. 

 

Lesson 1 – The Familiar Gift

Now that you know the backstory, I offer this first lesson I learned: When facing the unknown, look for God in the familiar. 

During those 24 hours, God revealed Himself in ways that I had never experienced before; and I hope to share some of those extraordinary moments in subsequent writings.  But God was also present in many of His familiar ways, and that truth is the subject of this lesson.

As soon as the doctor departed the room, Laurie and I understood we were hovering on the precipice of the unknown.  Even so, I was thankful to see a familiar flicker in my wife’s eyes, a look that I had seen time after time.  I knew in her eyes that God was showing up in a familiar way.  God’s peace settled in our room in the form of Laurie’s spiritual gift, the gift of encouragement.  That gift would now buoy us through the next 24 hours of uncharted waters and even as we navigated far into the future. 

In Romans 12:8, the word often translated “encouragement” means more literally “to call near.”  God has blessed Laurie with the gift to call people near to His intent for their lives.  Her life has been to encourage others to seek, discover, and act on God’s purpose for their lives. 

In all my associations with church leaders and congregants around the country, I have never met another individual with a more pronounced spiritual gift of encouragement.  Laurie would have given Barnabas himself, the Biblical paradigm for encouragement, a run for his money. 

Personally, in that moment, I needed to know that God would give meaning to those 24 hours.  Seeking His purpose is how I have met challenges in life, and God knew that I needed Laurie’s spiritual gift to find His greater good this time.  I understood the epiphany in her eyes, because I had seen God use her similarly over the years to encourage so many to find God’s intention, no matter their circumstances.

I recognized her affirming look as she encouraged countless young adults to come back to Christ after they had drifted away from the faith of their childhood.  It was her reassuring look as she supported hundreds of parents through their struggles to apply God’s truth in raising their children.  It was her look of confidence as she encouraged person after person to apply their own spiritual gifts to God’s glory, often resulting in the person’s accepting roles of church leadership, or singing in worship, or teaching Bible studies, or investing their lives in service to others.  It was her loving look as she peered into the eyes of so many Nicaraguan orphans and comforted them with the truth that God’s love transcends earthly struggles.

During those 24 hours in September 2020, God appeared through Laurie’s gift to encourage me to draw closer to His higher purpose for how I could experience those moments.  That is exactly what I needed.  I did not need a cheerleader to spur me to stay positive.  I did not need a researcher to educate me on Dr. Google’s odds for my survival, nor did I need placating comfort that all would be fine.  For me, hope exists at the intersection of God’s purpose and life’s challenges.  I found hope through Laurie’s familiar gift.   

When the doctor left the room, I looked into Laurie’s eyes and saw all those poignant expressions I had seen over the last 40 years.  I knew that wherever this journey would take us, Laurie would be at my side, encouraging me to see God in all that was happening.  My writing these words is a direct result of Laurie’s encouragement to offer my experiences for God’s use.

As the clock ticked off each hour to the procedure, God’s light sliced through the looming dark shadows in a very familiar way.  God often works that way.  It is part of His faithfulness.  God does not abandon us when the road gets difficult.  Rather, He walks with us, right where He has always been and, very likely, looking just like He has always looked. 

The challenge is that we must develop familiarity with Him now when the seas are calm.  If we do not travel with Him when the waters are smooth, we may not recognize Him in the storm. 

When you find yourself on a difficult stretch of road, consider how you have recognized God’s hand over the years.  How have you known God was with you?  Have there been certain people who have pointed you towards Him?  Have you found a song or passage of Scripture particularly helpful?  Have there been specific circumstances that have led to your awakening of God’s presence?  Remember, when you are traveling a completely unknown and unsure path, God knows your steps and may meet you there in the most familiar ways.  

Believe me, Laurie and I prayed earnestly for signs and miracles during our 24 hours, supernatural assurances that God was in charge.  We wished He would break into that moment and miraculously change the reality of our situation.  I will share more about that later. 

But thankfully, in the midst of our prayers for the miraculous, we recognized God, right where He always was, looking just like He always had.  He was there, fully present in Laurie’s spiritual gift.  It is true: when we faced the unknown, we found God in the familiar.