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THE SCIENCE OF GRACE #19
DON’T SAVE MY LIFE TILL NEXT YEAR
There’s a great story in the December 2003 Reader’s
Digest, entitled “Every Breath You Take.” A young athlete named Matthew
Joyce – active track star, motocross racer, basketball whiz, surfing enthusiast
– had also battled cystic fibrosis his whole life. For quite a few years,
the rare genetic lung disease hadn’t really hit him, hadn’t hampered his
successes on a surfboard at the beaches off La Jolla, California. But
when he hit ninth grade, the CF hit him back – and with a vengeance. His
sophomore year of high school he was diagnosed with Burkholderia cepacia,
something only three percent of CF victims ever get. The running was out;
pretty soon the surfboard was stored away in the garage as well. By his
12th-grade year, Matt was down to 70 pounds, he was coughing up blood,
and he was in a hospital bed on oxygen. Unless some miracle happened,
he was going to be gone soon.
The tough news was this: Matt really needed TWO lung donors, not one,
in order to have any shot at life again. What chance was there that two
people would come along, both compatible and both willing?
One day his mom, Debbie, an employee at a La Jolla supermarket, encountered
a regular customer named Frederick Phillips. He was a lawyer whose own
stepson had CF as well; when he heard about Matt, he said to Debbie, “Hey,
I’d be willing to donate a lobe.”
And then part two of God’s amazing leading in this world of hurt. A government
agent with the U. S. Customs Service, Dave Manglos, was commuting between
L.A. and San Diego one day, and decided to pull off the freeway and take
a break because he was kind of drowsy. There at San Onofre Beach, he casually
watched the healthy surfers out in the water, and, with a bit of time
on his hands, began to walk along the beach, skipping stones. That simple
act of watching the smooth pebbles skip . . . skip . . . skip across the
waves reminded him of church camp when he was a kid. Church camp reminded
him of the importance of prayer, and all of a sudden, this tough-guy government
agent found himself talking to God. And then:
“I had this strong feeling,” he later told writer Roland
Merullo, “that I was supposed to do something. I didn’t know what it meant.”
He continued on home, and judiciously did NOT tell
his family about this inner-voice moment on the beach. Would they think
he was, as he himself put it, “a little off the deep end”?
The very next night he and his wife were watching TV, and here on the
tube was Matt’s cousin, Jenny, appealing for a second lung donor. They
needed someone 5'10" or more. That would be Dave Manglos. They needed
a non-smoker. That was Dave Manglos too. O-positive blood. Officer Dave
Manglos. And that same inner voice seemed to say to him, “Uh, Dave . .
. I think we talked about this. Remember?” Dave looked at his wife, Rhonda,
and said: “That’s me. I’m gonna do it.”
Now, friend, let’s hit the pause button and let me pose maybe the dumbest
hypothetical scenario you’ve ever heard on this radio broadcast in our
75 years on the air. So Dr. Vaughn Starnes, Dr. Mark Pian, and the medical
team at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital L.A. get
in touch with Matthew Joyce, fighting for breath, weighing 70 pounds,
and tell him between his hacking, body-shaking coughs: “Great news! We’ve
got two donors! They both check out! We’re ready to green-light the surgery.”
And Matt, with his last bits of strength, looks at his day-timer or his
Palm Pilot and says to them, “You know, Doc, this is kind of an inconvenient
time for me. Maybe when hockey season is over. Maybe after I finish watching
all these Star Trek DVDs. Maybe after I get my weight back up to 110 pounds.
Why don’t you call me a year from now? I’ll talk to you then.”
Friend, that would be the dumbest response in the world! When this kind
of miracle gift is offered, you say just one word – YES! – and you say
it as quickly and as gratefully as you can . . . before the offer is rescinded.
If you’ve been with us in this exciting five-week radio adventure on the
topic of grace, you probably already know where I’m going with this, don’t
you? When the wondrous, life-saving gift of grace is offered to me or
to you, there’s one thing that’s true for sure. Here it is: NOW IS THE
TIME! Not next year. Not when the Stanley Cup finals are finished. Not
next summer when maybe things won’t be as crazy at work. Not in a few
months when you’ve maybe put on a few extra pounds of spirituality and
increased your religious white blood cell count by your own church-y efforts.
No, friend, NOW IS THE TIME.
There’s a great article by Larry Pitcher in a recent issue of the Adventist
Review – I mentioned Larry yesterday – and he makes this very point better
than I could. Here it is verbatim:
“God’s grace [doesn’t] wait for what we consider to
be a handy time. Grace calls us to work to build up God’s kingdom when
God knows the time is right for Him and for us. Jesus’ call to action
came to Peter while he was at work – not at worship.” Matthew 4 has the
story. “Jesus didn’t wait for the convenient time. Instead, grace confronted
Peter while he was very busy. Jesus asked Peter to leave everything and
become a disciple. That is an audacious, bodacious request. That is the
call of grace to action.”
Now, we started our study today thinking of our great
need – and God’s offer of grace. Larry Pitcher, here, seems to be describing
the kingdom of heaven’s need of US – and grace being an invitation to
join the workforce. Which is it? Well, of course, it’s both! And in both
cases, I want to say the same thing: NOW IS THE TIME.
Let’s go back to our great need, and consider this young man with cystic
fibrosis. Or you, or me . . . and our own loneliness, or emptiness, or
spiritual pain. Jesus comes along and says: “Follow Me. I want to bless
your life, give you salvation, be your Redeemer and best Friend.” When
is the best time for that kind of good news to begin? Obviously, the sooner
the better. Today better than tomorrow.
Sometimes, being a Southern California Christian ministry, there are times
when somebody puts together an expedition to a certain locale down in
Anaheim called “The Happiest Place on Earth.” There are roller coasters
and cotton candy and cheery characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
and Snow White walking around hugging the kids. There are fireworks displays
and exciting parades every evening. Now let me ask you to think like a
kid and not a tired grandpa. If the park opens at ten in the morning,
and if traffic is not an issue and if work schedules are not a conflict
and if tired, sore muscles and standing in endless lines at the Matterhorn
ride are not a difficulty to overcome, what would be the perfect time
to arrive at Disneyland’s front gate? Any kid in the world will tell you
that it is utter insanity to get there any later than ten o’clock sharp
a.m. Why would you want to miss a single minute of such happiness? (You
also must stay right through to closing time, as all parents around here
know, even if it’s drizzling or the lines at Space Mountain stretch along
the Golden State Freeway clear down to San Diego.)
And friend, what the Word of God is trying to tell us is this: God is
eager to give us this gift of grace! He wants to fix the hurts, dry our
tears, quell our sorrows. Why is waiting until next month a good idea?
What’s the “upside” in putting off the party?
I was a little bit startled when Larry Pitcher described God’s offer of
grace – right now, today, this minute – as “audacious and bodacious.”
Now, “bodacious” is actually a good word in Webster’s, meaning “remarkable,
noteworthy.” But it can also remind the male of the species of beautiful,
curvy, attractive women. And you know, I think it’s all right for us to
even allow some imagery here where our abundant God says to us: “Friend,
I want for you to enter – right now, please! – into the rapturous beauty,
the gorgeous splendor of the Christian faith. I want life within My family
to just overflow with love and blessings.” Believe me, it was always God’s
idea that the Children of Israel would experience “bodacious” advantages:
crops, health, great marriages, exciting worship, position and influence
among the nations. How it must have frustrated heaven when Moses’ camp
of complainers always wanted to wait for a better season, always wanted
to put off true discipleship.
Even in the call to service, you know, today is better than tomorrow.
In the parable where workers came to the vineyard at various times, the
truly fortunate ones spent the entire day in fellowship and ministry cooperation
with the wonderful Owner.
I think it’s safe to say, friend, that anytime a person deliberately or
carelessly shows up late to a good party, two things are probably true.
You don’t know a good party when you see one. And you probably just don’t
realize yet what an incredible Host this particular party has.
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