Dana's Christian Journey

A couple of weeks ago a former student (in his mid twenties) invited me to a graduation party. Chad was also celebrating the release of a book he had written. I was so happy to hear his news and told him I would come. Chad gave me a big hug when I arrived, almost lifting me off the ground. He stands 6’5″ and looks just as athletic as when he was in high school. He set a school record in pole vaulting his junior year but did not compete his senior year. His book, entitled INTERVENTION, tells what prevented him from completing his last year of high school.

I’ve had many friends through the years who have battled destructive habits of all types, but no one has explained addiction the way Chad does in this book. The language is blunt, but the story is true. For a young man, Chad is a great writer. He shared his wrongs, society’s pressures, and the devil’s tactics. He gives God the glory for his rescue and his parents credit for making the tough-love choice to intervene. Three days before he turned eighteen years old, Chad was ‘kidnapped’ from his own bedroom and sent to a wilderness rehabilitation program in Montana. INTERVENTION details the process of regaining a life of sobriety. Go to AMAZON and purchase the only book written by Chad Hepler and support a young author.

What if God had not intervened on our behalf? Whether an addict or not, sin doomed us all to death and destruction. What love the Father demonstrated in his plan of rescue! The Hero is none other than a dearly loved Son, who, after resisting every temptation, presented himself a perfect sacrifice and took all our deserved punishment upon himself at Calvary. Recently, another former student (in her late thirties) told me: “Coach Davis, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say I have a relationship with Jesus Christ.” After rejoicing with her I couldn’t help but ask a question: “How is it that a kid like you can be raised in a Christian home, go to church from day one, go to a Christian school, hear the truth all your life, but wait until now to really know Jesus?” Her answer was profound. “Coach Davis, I didn’t get it. The message went over my head… but I know why. Sin clouds everything. As long as I was in sin, my mind was in a fog… relationship with God made absolutely no sense.”  We forget sin’s power to confuse, deceive, and destroy. Louie Giglio once said, “Sin has a way of shrinking God down in our own estimation while puffing self up.”

The preparation message for Jesus was: “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is near!” The enemy’s retort is always: “No, no, no… There’s no rush. You’re OK. Everything will be alright.” In response to this constant lie, Chad wrote the truth an addict must admit before he can ever be free. “No it won’t! It will never be better. It will never be different. It will never change. You will always be reaching, always missing, always trying, always tired, always disappointed and always in pain. The worst part is the pain gets worse. But there is an answer. One answer, one option, one path to cure this cycle. The one answer you don’t want to hear. The one answer you cover your ears whenever you even think it’s being mentioned. The one answer that makes you cringe: TURN AROUND!”

Can refusal to turn around trump intervention? God forbid.

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” Mark 1:14-15 “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you as holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” Colossians 1:21-23

It is hard to believe another school year is coming to a close… so this will be my last writing for a while. I want to say ‘thanks’ to Steve Wolf, my techi-friend, poet, and song-writer who lives in Colorado but still helps me out. Friends at school kindly ignore my errors before Steve reads, gently corrects, and sends to others.

This story is a bit long to cover in detail, but my family learned some things this past weekend I’d like to pass along. I had to go to school early Saturday morning to get ready for a camp staff meeting, so Susan was in charge of getting Kinsey to the airport for a medical mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. Her team left on schedule last Sunday but was turned back because of the unpredictable volcano that has disrupted so much travel in the world. Kinsey got to come home for a few days before their re-scheduled attempt to get out of the country. Her trip initiated in Dallas so we purchased a one-way ticket from Atlanta to Dallas where she was to meet two friends. From there the trip was scheduled to go to Detroit then Amsterdam then Africa. Well, due to a few reasons, Kinsey arrived at the gate in terminal D sixty seconds after the gate closed. (She could painfully explain the meaning of Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. When a door is shut, never to be opened again… and you are late, the feeling is indescribably horrible.) I got the emotional call a few minutes before my staff meeting was to begin. “Kinsey, gather yourself. We just need to solve this problem and get you to Dallas before your next plane leaves for Detroit.”

The problem was… I didn’t know how to solve the problem. The next flight on that airline would get to Dallas too late and no one seemed eager to help. I handed Susan the phone and ran upstairs to my meeting with little hope for a solution. Everyone in the meeting knew Kinsey, so I shared the dilemma and asked my friend, Daniel, to pray. “Lord, we ask for your supernatural intervention to rescue Kinsey in this situation.” The answer to the prayer came when Susan told Kinsey to get back on the train and return to the front of the airport to try to purchase another ticket. On the train, she looked up and saw the father of one of her best friends from high school. He greeted her and asked what was wrong. “Mr. Ramon, I’ve missed a flight and I don’t know how to catch a plane to join my team going to Africa.” Mr. Ramon knew of Kinsey’s trip but little did we know the part he was to play. “Kinsey, I missed three flights on a business trip yesterday due to weather. I know exactly how you feel and we’re going to find a way.”

“He was the perfect person, Dad. He remained calm as he fought for me and he would not take ‘no’ for an answer.” For no charge, Kinsey ended up sitting in the last remaining seat (business class, no less) on a flight from Atlanta to Detroit where she met up with her team for the rest of the journey. Other heroes sacrificed to get her luggage (which did make it on the plane to Dallas) to Detroit and Susan, with tears in her eyes, gave a praise report at the end of our camp meeting.

I had not intended to stress this point with my staff, but God knows what is most important. I recounted, “Jesus says, ‘Seek, ask, and knock’… that is what we all did on Kinsey’s behalf and look at how He answered!” We serve an incredible God! He can overcome our weaknesses and errors; He hears our cries; and He loves to intervene. I have seen this so often and yet I easily forget. If God is this personal and if there is nothing good He can’t do, should I not be at his throne of grace more often? If I plead for a daughter whose important journey was endangered, should I not plead for endangered souls all over the world? If God cares about the small details of our lives, think how He must care about the lost and the captive and the hurting. I want to pray for ‘supernatural intervention’ every day. When I come face to face with the impossible, I want to go straight to God without hesitating. “God, You are able. God, You desire good more than I do. God, You want your incredible kingdom to be witnessed here on earth. So… rescue the perishing, heal the sick, cast out evil, and wake up the sleeping. For your glory, Lord, answer the prayers of your children… and may we not shrink back from asking impossible things. We pray in the Name of the One who lived this way. Amen.”

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to wake him up…Take away the stone… Lazarus, come out!…Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations (this includes ours!!), for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Jesus lived a simple life of love, trust, and obedience on this earth. His allegiance was to his Father and our allegiance should be to him. Simple… but is it easy?

“I studied the teachings of Jesus in University. Sometimes I thought his words were so beautiful that I cried. I thought, ‘If there is a God full of love and power, surely these things Jesus said are true.’” This was the comment of a Jewish school teacher Susan and I met at a cookout on Mt. Carmel. “His words are true,” I said. “Maybe,” she replied,”but it is impossible to live according to them.” I thought a moment, then answered, “I agree… unless He lives in you… and that is what He promises to do.”

The conversation did not go much further, but I was reminded that Jesus’ words force us to surrender to him, asking him to take over our lives. “With God, all things are possible,”… without God, we have no hope. The beautiful words my Jewish friend talked about were from the Sermon on the Mount. There she also found the impossible ones: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad!” “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Do not worry about tomorrow.” “Do not judge.” “Enter through the narrow gate.” “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

I am convicted as I copy these excerpts… realizing that Jesus calls me foolish if I don’t build my life on the unshakable Rock. “But how, Lord? Your way is not easy!” Paul might have encouraged this way: “Each day I pick up my cross and follow him. His way is not easy, but He is my Lord and I love him… and I want to know him better. Truthfully, I am dead… but Christ lives in me. His grace is sufficient and I am learning to abide in him.”

Oswald Chambers wrote this (Sept 25 from “My Utmost for His Highest”):

The summing up of our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us… No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be… The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen to me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount… Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.

May Paul’s words also be ours: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20