End of Day 7—Journey

Luke 9:1-6

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.


I was reflecting on this passage on my ride home tonight from the hospital.

Kyle had a pretty solid day, considering…
All in all, I was pleased that his doctor felt like he was doing well,… again,… considering all that goes or comes with being born at 23.5/7 weeks.
I joy in what God is doing, and continue to beg God to save, sustain and spare his life. When I left, he was down to receiving 34-35 breaths per minute from the vent at 22% Oxygen.
That is really amazing.
However,… if I have heard it once, I have heard it a ton…

It is a marathon, not a sprint.

My nutritionist told me I needed to get devoted to a marathon or triathlon or something like that once. I just thought to myself,.. this woman must be crazy… me? Run that many miles??? That is why God gave humankind the intelligence to make the automobile. Nope. Not for me.

But, here we are, on the brink of one of the biggest journeys of our life.

There is the crazy faith part of me that continues to pray and believe.
But there is the flesh side of me that is still gripped in fear and anxiety.
Fear and Anxiety are not of the Lord,… I know this,… I have confessed this over and over then worried that God won’t answer my prayer for my lack of faith and fear… enter in scripture…

And, this is really how my ADHD brain works…
One minute, I am near sobbing, doing all I can to hold it back from letting the dam burst,… the next, hearing scripture in my head…
One that rings over and over from John 11… (one of my favorite passages of the power of Jesus.)

Where he states: IF you believe, you will see the glory of God…. then later, he comes back in on the scene and reiterates Himself… Jesus did this sometimes, that is why I would like to think him as somewhat sarcastic sometimes…. But, He said later on… “ DID I NOT SAY that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
This is where the passage I began this post with comes to play.
On the way home, I was doing what I do when I get alone,… think, pray, break down… drive (which is hard with my new hip accessory the boot –
Thanks for the ankle sprain while at the hospital)…
Anyway, … So, I kept thinking of this passage from John… “If you believe…”
“If You believe… You WILL see the glory of God.” Then, the passage from matthew 5 came to mind: “Blessed are those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.”

I was thinking,.. I want to see God. I want to see the Glory of God.
I want others to see the Glory of God,… and I really want my son.
I want my son, but even still, HE (Kyle) was created for the pleasure of God,… whatever that looks like.

This is a hard thing to process. Why may you ask? It sounds so quite poetic and like a great J. piper quote from a great theology book…
Nope. Sometimes, the pleasures of God don’t directly line up with the pleasures of man. For example…
look at this passage…

Isaiah 53:10
But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting {Him} to grief; If He would render Himself {as} a guilt offering, He will see {His} offspring, He will prolong {His} days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.

God was pleased to crush Jesus. That doesn't line up very well with our view of God sometimes.


I would not wish what Kyle is going through, or what we, his parents are going through on my worst enemy. Period.
However, somehow, in these last 7 days, I have seen the glory of God in powerful ways. Others have seen the glory of God in powerful ways.
Now,… finally,.. enter into the beginning passage of this blog.

Luke. Chapter 9. The passage we never really want to dig into and explain away with easy compartmentalized chronologicized (did I just make up that word?) theology…

He (Jesus) gave His disciples (those who completely left it all behind, died to self and trusted Him)… power over demons… (scared yet?) and diseases.

Here is where unbelief creeps in like crazy, the enemy scores points in church USA, and we quickly jump to our picture of the crazy man on TBN religious broadcasting asking for money making a spectacle out of things…

AND... Here is where I don’t get some calls for worship leading…

I believe in this Jesus. Today.
I believe and choose to believe, current situation or not,
that Jesus has given us, His disciples, this same commission.

I can honestly say I have never been in a more naked, and vulnerable place.
Jesus said…

“Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.[fn1]
Kelly and I have brought nothing with us on this journey. There is nothing we can rely on but the power of God, which is exactly what Jesus was getting at here. There is nothing we can gloat about, and we dare not simply credit science and medicine without boasting only in the one who gives us science and medicine and ultimately gives us life and breath and a heart to love God.

So, my prayers tonight were very raw. very honest. very hard.
Very stripped down of all things cliché and all things religious…
Just proclaiming the power of the resurrected Christ over my son.
Believing, having… to CHOOSE to believe Him over the lies and fear of the enemy. It is an exhausting journey that we are on. These are the darkest nights of the soul for Kelly and me. With nothing to rely on but God, …

But, here is the truth… for that little one pound, amazing and precious gift and creation of God,… I would gladly journey into the darkest of wilderness
and groan and weep and pray, waiting for the one who put us in that wilderness to pull us out…

all 5 of us.

Ok, so it is 12 something in the morning,… my whole family is going to be mad at me that I am not asleep, and, Kelly will be mad that my post is so long… so
I will write more of my thoughts later.

Pray for our kyle. We love him so much we ache.