(…continued)
#2) In the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, one returned to give thanks. But illness can teach us to be grateful even when we aren’t healed. Sometimes we have to adjust to a health issue that will never get better, and what can we do then? Well, my brother-in-law Bob decided to be grateful for what he had left. Bob became legally blind very suddenly when he was only 55 years old. For the last 25 years he has been able to see only a little, as if looking through a pinhole. But Bob remained a positive guy, and every time I’d see him, he’d tell me how grateful he was to God that he could see that much. Now, he is losing even that– but still, no complaints. Now, Bob is grateful to God that he had that little bit of sight for that long. That attitude of gratitude that Bob has had is an inspiration to me now that I am dealing with some chronic, but far less serious eye problems.
Another inspiring person for me is Dave Busby, who was, years ago, a well-known Christian speaker. For his entire life, Dave dealt with huge chronic health issues, starting with polio as a child, and then cystic fibrosis, liver disease, heart disease, and diabetes. Not many of us can top that list. Every day was a mind-boggling struggle for Dave. Yet, he learned to adjust, living with and working with, whatever he had left. He was a man of prayer, and certainly he prayed for healing. And he believed God did answer his prayers, but in an interesting way. He said, “I have been healed of my desperate need to be healed.” Wow. I have thought about those words many times. That is a powerful testimony coming from a man that dealt with as much as he did all his life. Dave Busby died in 1997 at the age of 47, in the confident faith that he would then be completely healed, in the resurrection from the dead, when he would receive his new and perfect body. Illness can teach us to be grateful for whatever we have left.
And finally… #3) As Christians, who believe in a Risen Lord, we believe that we always have something left. So, illness can teach us to grow in our faith in Jesus, so that, like Dave Busby, we too can look forward to that final healing and the end of all health problems. Illness affects the finely-tuned workings of the body, and when it gets bad enough, the body breaks down completely, and we die, and there is nothing left of us. The great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart spent his life composing wonderful music. Do you know what that great composer did after he died? Well, he ‘DE-composed.’ Right. On our own, that is all we will be able to do. But I have always wanted to know if there were any other options that would give me the ability to do more than that. I know of only one way, and that is in Jesus who said He was the way and the truth and the life, and he was talking there about eternal life. One of my favorite Bible verses is John 6:68. Not long after the exciting, early days of Jesus ministry, there came a time that Jesus was hard to understand, and difficult to follow. Many people started to leave him, and Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave too. And in that verse Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Yes, indeed. Who else?
I like the routine of my retirement. I continue to get up early—5:00 or even earlier. That is still the best time of day for me. I like my coffee, my devotional time, my reading, and, my ability to keep at that for as long as I want without the pressure of having to run off to a whole list of obligations. By the evening I am tired, and I look forward to going to sleep. I have never been a late-night person, and even less so now. And that daily routine, or rhythm is, as the poets have pointed out, like the rhythm of all of life. If we live long enough, we can get tired of health problems and all the other troubles we face. And then, we might begin to look forward to that final sleep after the evening of life. But then, if we believe “in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting,” the rhythm continues; and after that longer sleep, we can look forward to what the old Negro spirituals called that “great, gettin’ up morning” when the trumpet shall sound and the Lord himself will wake us up and bring us into our new and eternal home. I like that rhythm.
In the meantime, there is in Luke 17:13 a most perfect prayer. When the lepers approach Jesus they say, “Jesus, have mercy on us.” When we are ill and can’t get better, when we see a loved one going down the wrong path and we can’t do a thing about it, when it seems like the whole world is coming apart at the seams, and finally, when we get tired of this world and this life, we can pray that little prayer we find here and so many other places in the Bible, “Lord Jesus, have mercy.”
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Let us pray: Abide with us, O Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Abide with us, for the days are hastening on, and we hasten with them, and our life is short and transient as a dream. Abide with us, for we are weak and helpless, and if thou abide not with us, we perish by the way. Abide with us, until the morning light of our resurrection day, when we shall abide forever with thee. Amen. –James Burns
