The Inside Scoop

Tag: faith

  • From a setback to a comeback?

    I had a little setback following my surgery for kidney cancer on May 20. I had barely been declared “cancer-free” when I began to experience over the course of several days a low-grade fever and chills. It ultimately led to a trip to the emergency room at the University of Washington on June 5.

    CT scans that evening revealed a 8.3-centimeter-sized abscess below my stitched-up right kidney. In other words, I had a very bad infection. During my four-night stay at UW, I received heavy doses of antibiotics, as well as a much-needed procedure to properly drain the infected site.

    I have to admit I had some anxious moments, lying there in my hospital bed, wide awake at 3 in the morning. Sleep-deprived and running a fever, I felt miserable and a little discouraged. I felt like I was in a “battle.”

    For the past six months, I’ve been a youth group volunteer leader at Bethany Covenant Church. I work with high-school boys, and in our small group I’ve talked to them about the physical, three-dimensional world we see, and the fourth dimension that we don’t see. The “unseen spiritual world” is beyond human perception, a realm inhabited by God, angels ,and yes, forces of evil that seek to “undo us.” There’s also a fifth dimension. But for those of you who are older, that was a rock group from the seventies!

    But I digress. Back to the fourth dimension, where spiritual wars are waged. The Apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians uses the image of a Roman soldier’s armor to describe how believers can stand firm in the midst of spiritual challenges. That armor includes prayer, memorized scripture, and for me even lyrics to a Christian worship song.

    One song stood out to me, and helped me during my darkest night, on June 6. It’s called “Way Maker,” by the group Leeland. We sang it almost every week at youth group. To be honest, it isn’t one of my favorite songs. It’s one of those “7-11 songs,” you know where you sing the same 7 words 11 times. But the words were so drilled into my head that they came to me in the midst of my fear that night at UW. The lyrics go like this:

    And You are
    Way maker, miracle worker
    Promise keeper, light in the darkness
    My God, that is who You are

    The words to the chorus also spoke to God’s presence, as I chose to walk by faith, and not by sight. I was not alone. He was with me “in the fire,” standing next to me. I could not see God working, but had this sense that things were going to be alright.

    Even when I don’t see it, You’re workin’
    Even when I don’t feel it, You’re workin’
    You never stop, You never stop workin’

    My surgeon, Dr. Sarah Psutka, said I had a “small leak” from my kidney following surgery. That was always considered a slight risk with a partial nephrectomy. As I write this blog, I am in Day 4 since my release from UW Hospital. I have no fever. The drain is clearing out the bacteria from the infection. I continue to heal and recover from what was a major, delicate surgery. I’m also sleeping better now.

    I’ve had my share of setbacks in life, as I’m sure you have. It can be a setback at your job, your career. It can be a broken or a strained relationship. It can be a financial setback. It can be the loss of a loved one. It can be the pain of regret. In those moments, we can’t see the whole picture. But God sees the end of the story. There can be no comeback without a setback. A setback can merely be a stepping stone to success, to a place where God wants us to be.

  • The pursuit of radical generosity

    I turned 70 in November. It was a time for celebration while surrounded by family in Arizona. It was also a time for reflection.

    Let’s face it, I’m old. On the surface “my work is done” and I’m “over the hill.” My career is in the rear-view mirror. I like to tell people that when I was working “I was pulling down good money. Now that I’m retired, I’m good for nothing.”

    And yet, if I’m honest with myself, that’s actually not true. There’s still time – God willing – to make the rest of my life the best of my life. A little more than seven decades on this earth, I’m still learning. I’m not a finished product. Our purpose on earth is not to take up space, make money, retire and go play golf. There’s “more work to do.” I want to be a better person. I want to make a difference. Whatever wisdom I’ve acquired, I want to pass it along to the younger generation.

    I’ve lived through many seasons of life—times of joy, challenges, and growth. Now that I’ve returned to the seventies (that’s a joke!), I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s important to me.

    The world values position, possession and passion, or in other words, status, salary and sex. My career and the acclaim that went with it was always important to me.

    My values? I’d rank humility, integrity and generosity at the top. In this Christmas season of giving, however, I’ve been wrestling with the question: Am I generous man?

    For most of my life I’ve been tight-fisted with money, reluctant to give my hard-earned salary to the poor, to the less fortunate. I trust God with my salvation, my life. Why can’t I trust him with my wallet? What I’ve realized since retiring is any money I’ve made is not mine. It’s God’s. I’m just managing it. I certainly can’t take it with me. I’ve never seen a hearse going to a funeral pulling a U-Haul trailer.

    And yet, generosity isn’t just about money.

    I want to be generous with my praise and affirmation. How often did I praise Vicki, our girls when they were young, the supervisors and co-workers I had, or my friends? Not often enough.

    I want to be generous with my attention. When you give someone your attention, and look them in the eye, you’re giving them your life. Have I really listened to people’s concerns, and sympathized with their plight? Or has my mind wandered during those conversations to my own needs and desires?

    I want to be generous with the lessons I’ve learned along the way, and share them with my grandchildren and younger men in my life.

    I want to be generous with my time. That means babysitting my grandchildren when on days I’d rather be doing something else. That means caring for my 91-year-old mother when it’s hard. Because of her advanced state of dementia, she can’t say my name or hold a conversation – yet her face lights up when she sees me because she knows it’s her son.

    I want to be generous with whatever God-given talents I have. That means giving my skills away for free, whether it’s for a faith-based ministry or a Pacific Northwest basketball legends organization.

    I’ve come to admire David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and regular contributor to the PBS News Hour. Most Friday evenings, Vicki and I watch the moderately conservative Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart, who is more to the left, discuss the week in politics on PBS. Brooks recently wrote a column about his faith. As one who had a 45-year career in journalism, I can’t tell you how unusual that is for a member of the media to reveal his or her spiritual side. In that column, he said this about generosity:

    “My life feels remusicked since my own little Exodus journey began. It turns out the experience of desire is shaped by the object of your desire. If you desire money, your desire will always seemed pinched, and if you desire fame, your desire will always be desperate. But if the object of your desire is generosity itself, then your desire for it will open up new dimensions of existence you had never perceived before, for example, the presence in our world as an energy forced called grace.”

    The Apostle Paul speaks in the New Testament about faith, hope and love, with the greatest being love. Generosity is the practical expression of those three. It’s been said you can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.

    God has been extravagantly generous with me. As a follower of Jesus, may I also be generous, not only with my money, but with my time, my affirmation and praise, my talents and my attention to the people around me.