Category — My Life

Fascinate: Some Things I Learned When I Died
Welcome to Steve’s new book in process. You are reading this new tome as it is being written. These are summaries of what will later appear in print and ebook format.
This is some of Steve’s most personal, heartfelt work yet.
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please use the comment box below to connect.

#6: “Big God!”…Your Perspective on Him Will Change.
When death has come your way, your image of God will be altered. It has to. The pain is so intense it’s impossible for your previous perspective on the Almighty to remain unchanged. Suffering drives us one direction or the other. Either we will come away with an image of him that brings us closer or he will seem more distant.

For years the medical community has asked what a coma patient can sense. I was in a coma for a while as a result of my medical accident. I can tell you exactly what I went through. I was utterly aware of all that was happening around me. I couldn’t move or communicate, so at first I was frustrated. It didn’t help that medical personnel treated me like a non-entity. They assumed that I was in a sleeping state. (On the funny side my nurses played the Christmas album of Harry Connick, Jr. over and over for days on end. It played literally more than a hundred times non-stop as new nurses came in and hit the replay button on the CD player. Again, they thought I was in a sleep state and couldn’t be disturbed. Days later when I came out of the coma and could at least write I made it clear: NEVER play that CD again!)

But I wasn’t sleeping. I was fully capable in my spiritual self to get in touch with God as clearly as I have ever been able. The coma turned out to be a great gift. For those several days I leaned into God without distraction. I meditated on Scriptures I had memorized. I drew further and further into God’s presence. After a couple of days I felt a breakthrough. He was so real I could almost reach out and touch him. I mesmerized by the awesomeness of God. I rarely use the “A” word. In this case it fits.

“Big God!”
The doctors were afraid I had experienced some level of brain damage. After being in a coma for a while they weren’t sure what sort of damage had occurred. I had been through extremely low blood pressure for a time (30/10 for more than an hour). As I was able to talk, my first words confirmed their fears. In a dramatic moment, several doctors gathered around my bed. They leaned over me to hear my first words after coming out of this state. With a hoarse voice I uttered repeatedly what seemed to be nonsense, “Big God, big God, big God…”

But it made sense to me. I had been in God’s unfettered presence for several days. The take away was this: I was more convinced than ever that God is awesome beyond description. I felt a little like Isaiah when he saw his remarkable vision. “He is high and lifted up and his train fills the Temple.” God was so big , so amazing all he could see was the tail end of his robe and that alone filled the spacious Temple. He is BIG! The certainty of that is enough to carry us through.

Fascinate: Some Things I Learned When I Died
Welcome to Steve’s new book in process. You are reading this new tome as it is being written. These are summaries of what will later appear in print and ebook format.
This is some of Steve’s most personal, heartfelt work yet.
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please use the comment box below to connect.
#5: Resolution Is Essential
When you experience a death, you WILL have people to forgive.
I wrote recently about some “Job friends” related to my death experience. Several asked if I resolved my issues with them. The answer is Both yes and no. Yes I have forgiven them. I have moved on in life, figuratively and literally. At the same time I find it essential that I continue to deal with the recurring reality of what happened as well as the ancillary issues.
Until you forgive and move on, you will remain stuck in the midst of your emotional malaise. Illness of the soul is as debilitating (if not more) than any physical problem.
When a major event occurs, a life changer (you may go through life and not have one of these), forgiveness must be dealt with over the long haul.
Ponder this:
Forgiveness is a process, rarely an event.
It takes a while to move through the gyrations of forgiveness. I’m not sure there are universal steps in this. I’ve read books about forgiveness from people who are well intentioned. They typically provide readers with steps to follow in order to “completely and utterly forgive” and move on in life. I’m not sure God has simple steps he wants us to follow to gain freedom. Yes he has in mind that we gain freedom from the chains that bind us. Forgiveness is typically drawn out over a period of time, at least when we are dealing with major life-changing events.
Forgiveness is repetitive.
On life changing events that go haywire, you will have to forgive repeatedly. Our souls have a way of being disappointed at deep levels. They are slow to snap back to their original states. In the meantime you will need to forgive over and over. Don’t pay attention to simple-minded people who say idiotic, simplistic things like, “You haven’t really forgiven if that issue is still alive in your heart.” The fact that the original issue is still alive doesn’t mean that you didn’t forgive or that you haven’t dealt with it. It’s simply evidence that you have deep feelings. You have work to do still as you peel the onion another layer deeper. Remember, it’s an onion not an apple.
Forgiveness requires divine intervention.
If the Holy Spirit doesn’t empower us we won’t have the wherewithal to move forward. He is the only force who can give us the power and perspective we need to let go.
We have steps to take in the process of seeking and gaining forgiveness. Yet we have to realize that our only hope lies in God showing up and doing the real work of bringing freedom. In the end our strategy is the simple prayer, “Lord have mercy.”

Welcome to Steve’s new book in process. You are reading this new tome as it is being written. These are summaries of what will later appear in print and ebook format.

This is some of Steve’s most personal, heartfelt work yet.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please use the comment box below to connect.

Lesson #1: Friends Come and Go But Enemies Rise To the Occasion

When the bottom drops out of life it becomes apparent who is lined up on your side…and who is passing you a holy hand grenade for your journey. The term “Enemy” might be too strong here. Often people don’t mean to kill and maim. The bad stuff happens accidentally because relationships aren’t shored up.

In my near-death disaster people lined up to “help” Janie through my medical crisis (the aftermath of my aorta being pierced twice in a botched surgical procedure…I literally bled to death over a 75-minute period with a blood pressure of 30/10). Some of these “friends” were more like those of Job. To quote Bugs Bunny, “With friends like these, who needs enemies!”

On the first night of this meltdown, when I was at my most critical state and on the verge of death, it was apparent I needed to be transferred to a larger, regional hospital. Obvious. Clear as could be. Didn’t need a medical background to see that I was dying and needed to be moved quickly. Amazingly a few in the crowd argued with Janie that it would be best if I were left at the tiny community hospital. Tragically a couple of those outspoken voices were ones who served closely on staff with me. “Now Janie, don’t you think it would be best to keep Steve here for a few days? Let us take care of these details for you since you are under so much stress…” Janie’s response? “We are moving Steve. And by the way, when Steve recovers and hears about your response he is going to be very POed.” (She was right on both counts.) I was transferred in spite of this huddle. The doctors at the regional unit said I would have died within 12 hours without the needed trauma care they provided.

High stress settings–times of great loss–bring out the best in some but the worst in others. What gives? What causes unexplainable levels of weirdness at times of stress like this? Our response depends on how well we have done with our heart work leading up to the crisis. If we have kept short accounts we tend to do well. If we have been lax, a meltdown like this is probable. Consider this:

Jealousy

. Perhaps you hold this in your heart now toward someone. God forbid that a crisis strike before you deal with it. Latent unresolved feelings lurch forward under stress. Deal with your negative feelings now before a crisis strikes. A crisis will happen sooner or later.

Misunderstanding

. There is some lack of clarity going on in ALL of your relationships. That is reality for all the sons and daughters of Adam. Deal with it now while it is small and manageable. Clarify. Start with, “I want to walk in peace with you.

Ambition

. Selfish ambition is evil. We may legitimize it as goal setting or vision but that’s just a cover up for our problem with our need to seek to control all that goes on around us. God will eventually deal with us. Sometimes through a looming crisis if we insist it come down to that. He is the Controller. You are not. You only appeared to be in charge for a brief time.

Pettiness

. What’s a big deal and what’s not? Very seldom does something come along that is worth getting up in arms about. Don’t let the little things accumulate. Shed yourself of those matters every now and then. It is a sin to carry feelings of ill-will about. When examined such matters nearly always ridiculous. It embarrassing that we ever thought this was a matter worth getting upset about.

Picking up some great lessons in the realm of outreach lately.

1. Diligence. The race isn’t to the fastest or the most impressive initially, but to the one who hangs in there for the long haul. I am impressed that we have seen some great things happen in the area of outreach – as people are being touched they are opening up – we are mentoring the community in civility it seems. I am impressed that we are able to turn on the faucets and see people respond.
2. Indomitable spirit. We need to have a willingness to hang in there no matter how rough the going gets. I am convinced we are going to see God show up in a stellar way as we just continue to persevere. What is the goal of all of this? Isn’t it to fall in love with others who are different than us? I think so. I can’t fall in love with the people of the city unless I am around them on a regular basis – unless God mentors me in these things. I am going to warm up to them – I am going to turn on the rocket boosters of this machine in order to get around the people who are desperately seeking Jesus. They might not know they are desperately seeking Jesus quite yet, but that’s okay. I am going to hang around them until they get it.
3. Recycle lessons learned. I am seeing that the lessons I learned a time ago – a season or two ago – are still timely. God is able to resurrect those lessons into my daily life so I am able to pick up on the lessons learned. As Wimber used to say, “Old marching orders are good marching orders.” What I started out to do some time ago still works. Those insights are good, pleasant, helpful – I will persevere in following those out.
4. Emphasize obedience. It all starts with us humbling ourselves and going back to the things that Jesus spoke to us to begin with. Unless we obey his call – unless we walk out his words to us – we will not get very far. I am convinced he is calling us on a big scale to do similar things. I hear people tell me all the time that they have been called by God to serve their community. I also hear many tell me they have gotten off track in the original calling – they have fallen into building facilities, into strategizing budgets, into the notion of building facilities in the belief people will automatically gather. I don’t buy the idea that we are okay with the erecting of facilities at the expense of dropping outreach efforts. We are all about outreaching on a perpetual basis if we take the model of scripture seriously. Unfortunately many have been able to get by with that schedule – with the idea that as they serve a little or not at all. God operates on the basis of serving, outreaching = forward progress. God don’t let us see surface progress and confuse that with your God given momentum. I like the heart of Catherine Booth of the early days of the Salvation Army fame–she said that Jesus never called us to build and simply gather – rather he calls us to outreach and aim beyond as we gather the hurting, the impaired, the discouraged.

Ever get to a fork in the road? Yogi Berra exhorts us to take it in times like that.

We can hopefully all relate to the notion of coming to a fork in the road in the best sense of the possibilities that God is opening up for us.

I know more people who are in some sense of flux right now than I can remember in recent memory. Maybe change comes to us in clumps. Perhaps God works on a broad scale as a Scatterer of seeds of change. It seems clear that God does mount changes with groups in similar ways all at once.  Our part is to role with the punches as it all starts to flow. We get to practice patient endurance as chance commences.

So how is your change happening these days? How do you rate it? If those around you are going through thick change you might be next though we don’t need to anticipate any negativity.