I wait for your salvation, Lord,
and I follow your commands.
Psalm 119:166
I'll have to admit I've often been reading the scriptures and been baffled. Sometimes it's even a verse or paragraph or chapter I've read before and understood completely, but now, reading it with the benefit of additional years on the one road of life, the very same passage leaves me wondering what it means.
That's the way the Word works on your heart. Like Hebrews 4:12 says, "the word of God is alive and active; sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" ... and it can be like a multiple procedure intensive surgical operation over an extended time period. Salvation is promised, but you might have to wait a long while to fully grasp its particulars.
When I had my heart attack in October of 2018, I learned a precious lesson about myself. As a lifelong believer, you'd think I'd be confident of my final destination when death finally comes. That would seem to come naturally for someone who has been a Christian since I was 11 and has been a preacher and teacher and counselor and writer and prison minister and small group leader for Christ in the 50-plus years since.
But you know as well as I do that it isn't that cut and dried. Can you honestly tell me you know for a certainty how you'll react when that moment comes and you're facing the very real possibility of imminent death, staring into its cold dark vacant eyes? Are you positive you'll be positive about what's next, without fear?
Of course you can't. If you've never been at the edge of the precipice and you claim to be certain, I don't believe you.
And yet, when that time came for me, I was sure. I'm not bragging, I'm just reporting what I felt because I want you to think about it for yourself.
During the hours they were preparing me to go into surgery for the heart catheterization, with a significant percentage possibility I wouldn't survive, I was sure. Even when the procedure stretched from one hour to two to three and almost four hours, with me waking up in the middle of it (which isn't supposed to happen), I was sure.
As it stretched on an on, I remembered my wife, Karen, asking the doctor how long the procedure would take. His answer was that if it takes less than an hour, it probably means they immediately found out it's going to be a bigger deal requiring open heart surgery. If it takes two hours, that probably means it was a simple procedure with one, maybe two, stents. If it goes to three hours and beyond, it's not good at all and the odds of survival begin to drop.
Even as my catheterization went into the fourth hour, I was sure.
Now, I was afraid for what my death would mean for my wife and my children and others being left behind. But I wasn't afraid for my own future. I knew - I know - whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. (II Timothy 1:12).
That confidence comes from spending a life deep diving into the Word of God and doing my best to seize the opportunities He puts in front of me to live out that Word and share it with others.
I've wondered whether God had some greater purpose in putting me through the awful experience of a heart attack.
This past January, on the first Sunday of the new year, I picked up a man named Mike at the University of Missouri Hospital. The Lyft app told me he needed to go to Kirksville, Missouri, 88 miles to the north. The pick-up location and the long destination told me immediately this was a patient being released from the hospital and Medicaid was using Lyft to get him home.
I've learned to be very careful about which of those long trips to accept. The pay is great, but if it's the wrong day, the wrong time of day, or the wrong sort of passenger, it isn't worth it for a 63 year old guy who has had a heart attack. But something deep in my heart told me to go ahead with this trip.
This fellow was almost as old as me. He was dealing with cancer, of a type grown men don't like to talk about. The prognosis wasn't good and the next steps of treatment promised to be painful.
During that long trip north we began talking about trivial things, but soon I was talking about my experience with the heart attack. I've discovered people want to know exactly how it felt. They want the details. And Mike was no different, so I told him.
I told him how it felt to have every blood vessel in my chest burning like they were filled acid. I told him that still today I have PTSD-like nightmares about waking up and feeling the long catheter being pushed up through the blood vessel in my arm.
I also told him about my unequaled joy at discovering I really do believe with all my heart in the promise of eternal life.
In response, he opened up and shared his fears and his frustrations and a few graphic details of his own experience. And I was able to encourage him to open up to the people in his life who would be there for him in the weeks and months to come.
I'm certain I'll never see him again. I don't know his full name and have already forgotten his address.
But I know for certain it wasn't the Lyft algorithm alone that paired that passenger with me for that trip. I'd been waiting for the Lord to reveal His reasons for putting me through that extended nightmare on the procedure table. I kept myself open to follow His lead, and was prepared for the divine appointment he had in store for me on that long Lyft ride.
Since then, God has provided several similar opportunities to share with friends and the strangers who populate the passenger seats of my car.
And I'm certain the best thing I can do is to continue to wait for Him to act and follow where and when He leads.
