Has life left you a few mementos?  For me it’s silicone lenses, a capsular tension ring, a fifty micron ophthalmic shunt, a metal anchor in each heel, plus the usual stretch marks, wrinkles, gray hairs, numerous surgical scars, and quite a few missing parts.  For Keith it’s a plastic eye socket, five bullet wound scars, a few wrinkles (very few, dear), and a loss of hair.  Our battle scars make our lives sound far more interesting than they actually are.
 
           We live in a culture that wants to erase those marks of life at any cost.  I still don’t understand why anyone would want to get rid of laugh lines.  Does she want people to think she has lived a miserable life?  I remember a couple of little boys who were thrilled to death whenever they had a “booboo” to display.  I suppose it all depends on how we got those “booboos.”  I am never quick to show off a bruise I got for being downright stupid.

            Paul was proud to mention the scars he earned for the Lord, Henceforth, let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus, Gal 6:17.

            What about spiritual battle scars?  If we are fighting “the good fight,” we ought to have quite a few.  I wonder, though, if we have fallen into the trap of our culture.  No scar is a good one because no fight is a good fight.  Love everyone and accept everything they do.  We might as well take the scissors to our Bibles.

            If I don’t have any spiritual scars, why not?  Is it because I run from the fight, too ignorant of the Sword to do battle? Am I too concerned with the opinion of my neighbors to stand up for something unpopular?  Is it because I give into temptation too easily?  Satan only tempts those he has not caught.  Maybe I am just a POW too cowardly to try to escape.

            On the last day, we had better have a few battle scars to show the Lord.  We enlisted in an army that fights all day every day.  Deserters will not receive the reward.
 
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way,  but not crushed;  perplexed,  but not driven to despair; persecuted,  but not forsaken;  struck down,  but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,  so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh, 2 Cor 4:7-11.
 
Dene Ward

That’s what my doctor asked a couple of weeks after one of my eye surgeries.  He is a very proper Englishman and has an odd way of phrasing things at times, at least to my American ears, but that one still caught me off-guard.
 
           “May I prod you?”

           “With what?” I blurted out, nonplussed.  Since I am a country girl I suppose all I could think of were cattle prods.

            As it turns out, the scleral flap he had placed inside my eye to control the drainage through the shunt was not situated exactly right.  He needed to move it, and the only way to do so was to “prod” my eyeball. 

           He took two six inch long cotton swabs, eased them into my eye socket over the top of my eyeball and, while watching the progress through a lighted scope, proceeded to mash down on that eye for all he was worth.  At least that’s what it felt like, but perhaps that was because that eye still had a fresh incision.  As you can imagine, I sat as still as I could.  Doctors always tell you not to put Q-tips in your ears.  I wonder what my other doctors would have thought about two big ones sticking out of my left eye socket.  A friend was with me and witnessed this a little uncomfortably.  “Almost lost my lunch,” I think was what she said, “but the young resident watching the procedure looked grayer than I felt.”

            Eventually the internal flap moved a millimeter or so and he was pleased.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I know that was uncomfortable.”  Indeed, I thought, somewhat “Britishly.”  After all these years he is wearing off on me.

            We are prodded often in our lives, and like me at that moment, it is always our choice whether or not to allow it.  Too many times we make the wrong choices.  “He made me mad,” is inaccurate.  What happened is, I let him make me mad.  I allow the words and actions of others to create wrong reactions in me.  I allow the pressures of society to push me into bad decisions.  I allow temptation to overcome me, instead of me overcoming it.  And in every case it is no one’s fault but my own, because the choice was mine.

            How do I know?  Because when there comes a time of good prodding, good provocation--let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, Heb 10:24—then I ignore it when it is not what I want to do.  If one is my choosing, then so is the other.

            Satan prods us all the time.  Sometimes he uses circumstances; sometimes he uses people; sometimes he uses ideologies.  It is always up to us to recognize the true source of those things and choose to ignore it.  Instead we must find those who urge us toward the good, encouraging proper attitudes and actions through example or teaching.

            Just like those cotton swabs pushing on the outside of my eyeball affected what was happening on the inside, provocation works on the heart and the attitudes.  In the final analysis it is up to us to make the right decisions.  Just who is asking, “May I prod you?”  Is it the Lord, or is it Satan?  To which one will I listen?  What will I choose to do?
 
[Love] does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not provoked, takes no account of evil, 1 Cor 13:5.
 
Dene Ward

            I wish I had a dollar for every hour I have sat in waiting rooms in the past ten years, especially at the eye clinic.  I had a 3:30 appointment once, and finally saw the doctor at 7 pm.  Then there was the time we discovered that I needed an emergency procedure.  My appointment had been at 11:00.  I was finally pronounced fit to leave at 5:30. 

            The shortest amount of time I have ever spent at the clinic is two hours.  Sometimes the doctor is overbooked because he has critical patients who simply must be seen that day; I have been one of those patients.  Sometimes he runs late because an emergency arrives that must be worked in; I have been one of those emergencies.  I can hardly complain when someone does it to me.

            Yet, even the night I had to wait until 7:00, I never doubted that I would be seen.  I have never worried that someone would forget I was there and the doctor would leave.

            It makes no sense to doubt God either.  Sometimes we must wait a long time for the answer to a prayer, but it will come.  Sometimes we must endure a trial far longer than we ever expected, but He has not forsaken us.  How long did those faithful Jews wait for their Messiah?  I have never waited that long for God, have you?

            The world thinks that because the promised second coming has not happened in 2000 years it won’t happen at all.  They think that proves God doesn’t even exist, completely ignoring the evidence of His existence all around them.  That makes about as much sense as me deciding my doctor doesn’t exist because I have been sitting here waiting for three hours now, and my fellow patient in the next seat has waited four.

            My doctor is worth the wait.

            If ever anyone was worth a longer wait, it’s God.

Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:3-9.

Dene Ward

From my journal:  Monday, June 13, 2005.
This is the big day.  “Terrified” pretty well says it all.  We began it with a prayer and that prayer continued on silently through the day for both of us.  
    Today I will undergo a surgery that has never been done successfully before, using a newly invented device that has never been used before.  If it works, my vision will be saved for awhile longer.  If it doesn’t, I will be blind in that eye.  If we don’t try it, I will be blind in both eyes, probably before the year is out.
  
 We arrived early, expecting a wait, but they took me straight in, after I signed some special consent forms upstairs.  Since the FDA had not approved this, “you will have to sign your life away,” the doctor told me, but what choice did I have?  I signed page after page, and then initialed some handwritten lines added along the side of the form.  One of them said, “I understand that no one knows how this material will interact with human tissue.”  Finally they sent me back downstairs to the surgical floor.  

    When the nurse called me in, Keith and I shared a long hug.  I am sure that no one else there understood why we made such a big deal out of this, but it was possible that I would never see him out of that eye again, and maybe not the other before much longer.

    That was quite a day and quite an experience.  I was, as noted above, terrified.  You don’t sign your life away like that unless you are desperate, unless the only other choice is a bad one.  I did it, and it gave my left eye another year and a half of vision before we had more difficult and painful surgeries to go through, which have spared me yet again.  The right eye, the one that took the plunge first on this day ten years ago, is still hanging in there.  Signing my life away has given me ten more years of vision so far, years no one expected even if the surgery worked, and who knows how much more to come before the medications stop working and the shunt is compromised.

    That level of desperation is the level you must feel in your spiritual life before you will “sign your life away” to God.  

    And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison-house were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened: and every one's bands were loosed. And the jailor, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm: for we are all here. And he called for lights and sprang in, and, trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  Acts 16:26-31.

    Do you think that jailor wasn’t terrified?  Do you think he wasn’t desperate?  Imagine how that plea sounded coming from this trembling man who thought his life was over.  “What must I do to be saved?”

    Desperate people do desperate things—like commit their lives to God.  If you never felt that desperation, chances are your commitment was not real.  Chances are you will fall when times get tough, when sacrifices are demanded, when you lose more than you bargained for.  Desperate people do not bargain.  They take the first offer and take it immediately.

    How desperate were you when you were offered salvation?  If you “grew up in the church,” you may never have felt it.  Doing what everyone expects of you is not desperation.  Wanting the approval of others, especially one particular “other” is not desperation.  “Just in case” is not desperation.  You have to recognize a need and know there is no other way of taking care of that need.  You have to know what it means to stand a sinner before a holy God—and it doesn’t mean you feel guilty because you stole a cookie from the cookie jar.  But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord, Luke 5:8.  That, standing a sinner before a holy God, is the recognition you must come to.

    Signing your entire life away to God is exactly what He expects of you.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple, Luke 14:33. Nothing and no one can be more important to you than Him.   I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, Gal 2:20.  Your entire life is no longer yours to do with as you please, but since you know that is your only hope, you do it gladly.
    
    How desperate were you?  How desperate are you now?

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, Col 3:1-3.

Dene Ward

It happened again the last time I went in.  I got another new resident assigned to do the preliminary work-up.  Since it was a cornea appointment instead of a glaucoma appointment he had not even planned to check the pressures.  I mentioned that my vision was foggy and my eye felt a little different.  Could that be caused by higher pressures?

    “Oh no,” he confidently asserted. “Your pressure would have to be over 50 for that to happen, and you would be throwing up by now.”  

    I looked at him and said, “I’ve been at 70 before without symptoms.”  I am not sure he believed me until he went to the next hall over and pulled my other file, the four inch thick one with more notes than he had probably seen on any six patients put together.  He read for several minutes and discovered that the obvious course of action for most patients is the worst course for me, and quietly took my pressures.  They were indeed high.  If nothing else, that day he learned that not all patients follow the rules.

    We can be a little like that inexperienced young doctor when it comes to following God’s law.  We so badly want it all spelled out in black and white for every situation life hands us--it’s so much easier than having to think and examine our hearts.  That’s why we who have led sheltered lives, perhaps growing up in the church as second, third, or even fourth generation Christians who have never had a drink, never let a bad word slip, and never even considered breaking one of the “big” commandments, can be so judgmental about others who still struggle every day.  A young Christian who came from a rough background recently said to me, “People in the church look down on me when I talk about battling sin.  They say if my faith is genuine, it shouldn’t be that way.”  We carry our rule books, measuring everyone around us, instead of using the sense God gave us, and the love and encouragement he expects of us.

    Rule Book people have another problem as well. Despite their protestations of having a true faith because it does so many works, many never truly believe in the grace of God.  Some of these poor misguided people worry themselves silly wondering whether they are truly saved.  They second-guess every decision they make; they are never confident that they are doing well.  Someone has forgotten to read John’s first epistle to them, which he wrote “so you may know you have eternal life,” 1 John 5:13.

    Finally, those folks work so hard to get every little detail right that they often miss the point of the commandment they are trying to follow.  The Pharisees are the ultimate example.  Even though they began with the simple and righteous desire to follow God’s law exactly, they eventually reached the point that they totally missed the focus of the Law.  It became a study of minutiae instead of concept.  I once read a bit of one their documents discussing the passage, “I meditate on thee in the night watches,” (Psa 63:6).  The point of the passage is to be thinking on spiritual things all through the day and night, but the next four pages were devoted to various rabbis’ arguments about how many night watches there were so they could be sure to meditate exactly that many times! That is what happens when you focus only on the rules and never the heart.  Surely none of us wants to be in a group Jesus called “a brood of vipers.”

    Do not misunderstand me.  I believe God has a set of laws He expects us to follow to the letter, but life is not always simple.  Sometimes a situation arises that is not cut and dried.  We have to actually think about what the right course of action is and make the best possible decision.  Sometimes what I feel is right for me may not be what you feel is right for you.  It is not situation ethics.  It is simply a place where God has not spelled things out, but has left us as His children to pray and meditate, and make a decision from a heart of love and good intentions, and then to trust His grace if we have made a mistake.  To do otherwise, or to simply do nothing, would be the sin, and to judge otherwise, would be the self-righteousness Jesus despised.

And he spoke also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at naught: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one who exalts himself shall be humbled; but he who humbles himself shall be exalted, Luke 18:9-14.

Dene Ward