I heard some words from a friend on the phone;
Didn’t sound so good.
The doctors gave him two weeks to live;
I’d give him more,
If I could.
You know that I would now.
If only I could.
– Jack Johnson, ‘If I Could’
I’d heard a little about the man who’s house I was entering two weeks ago from Jen who had met him and prayed with him the day before, but none of it had been anything to prepare me for what I was to see. I knew his name was Elmer and that he was sick. What I didn’t know was that upon entering the house I would see a man who looked more wasted away than dead bodies I’ve seen at funerals. Though a sheet covered him from his stomach down, I could see that his legs were thinner than my own wrists, that his stomach was a hollow pit in the midst of his body, and his face barely held more shape than that of a skeleton. His hands were about the only thing he could move, and those he moved slowly and feebly. He could only say a few words, mumbled, and not very coherent. This was a man at death’s door I realized, and I would not have been caught by surprise if he had breathed his final breath in front of me then and there. Over the following two weeks various people from our team have been visiting Elmer, praying with him and sharing the word of God. I have been unable to return personally since my first visit, but this week the group that was up there came back with some news:
Elmer had been dancing in his living room with Jen that day.
That dead man that I had seen laying on his bed was not only up, praising God, and conversing but DANCING! He is praising the Lord for each additional day of life he is given and really living, possibly for the first time in his life.
Yesterday I told you of the hardships of the pastors in this area and asked you to pray for them. I don’t know where you’re at in your faith or how seriously you take requests like that, but this right here is why I ask for your prayers for things on this journey. Prayer is not a fuzzy feeling I get when I say nice words for people. It’s not a duty I perform or am guilted into doing. It’s not a recitation of repeated empty words, or an invocation of special words that give me what I want. It’s not a one sided conversation or a grocery list of wants and needs. It’s not a chore. And it’s not a belief I hold – it’s a knowledge I have. Prayer is a conversation with God, a communion and fellowship with the Almighty. You get to stand in His very presence and just talk to Him. Why? Because that’s what He wanted for us from the beginning, but due to our own sin it required the death of His son to bring us back to that communion. That’s how much we meant to Him, how much He wants this for us. And when something troubles us, we are told to bring it before Him and trust it in His hands. To submit to His wisdom in the matter and let go.
That right there is the essence of our relationship with Him. To come to Him and seek His presence, to trust in Him in all things and seek His ways, not the world’s. In doing so, we find that our hope, our paradise, is not in things like beautiful oceans, palm trees, colorful fish or fruity drinks on the beach, but in seeking the Kingom of God that He has handed us the key to. To pray for another is to ask for that Kingdom to take hold of their life and drive out the things that are not of it. For to walk in submission to God’s will, to carry His presence with us each moment of the day, and to rejoice in that presence…THAT is paradise.
So thank you all for your prayers this year, and always. For praying, even if you don’t know the outcome, for the different people and needs we come across. Because the short version of all this? God does hear you. And He answers. Just ask Elmer.
By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man’s firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
– John Milton, ‘Paradise Regained’
