purpose

The face of addiction

Overdose. What does that word conjure up in your mind? Put a face to the word overdose and who do you see?

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The face of our Jacob; a college freshman addicted to prescription pain medication

I know what it means for me because that is how my son and nephew died. Just ten months apart Justin overdosed on heroin and Jacob overdosed on prescription meds.

I have asked myself the question,”Where did I fail as a father?” I didn’t fail to love my son nor did I fail to educate him about the dangers of drug abuse. As parents we provided every opportunity possible for him to live a productive and wholesome life. He was involved in school musicals, choir, football and wrestling. He was a good student and he was active in church youth group. We lived our Christian faith in front of him as best as our frail flesh could. Jesus sat with us at the dinner table and we gave him thanks for his provision. Yet here I sit, my son is gone and I ask myself again, “Where did I fail as a father?” One concerned but totally ignorant older man asked me if I failed to educated him about the dangers of drugs at a young age. As if that would have prevented the March 26th 2014 overdose in the basement of our home. That is just stupid.

I wish… (I only think this and never would 😉 say it) I wish ignorant people would shut their big yappers. Nothing inflames me more than hearing people pontificate about an issue they are truly ignorant about. I have discovered these are generally older people who have created a false stereotype of drug addicts. (Yes, I just profiled and stereotyped some old people) They read a pamphlet or watch a documentary and have decided that there is a solution to the problem. So they go on a crusade  and campaign against drug use to stop the madness. They assume there was a failure in the home, or perhaps they missed out on the DARE program and demand more education, laws, and law enforcement from their senators. Surely money, education and activism will slow and stop this societal blight.

My son did not die of an overdose because he lacked education, or love, or nurturing. Will education, law enforcement, governmental regulations and programs stop overdoses? It may curb the problem but there will never be enough money, police, or rehab centers to end this deadly issue that seeps into all places of our society. Love can’t stop it, government can’t stop it, money, law enforcement, education and whatever other method devised by man may curb it but drug overdoses are here to stay. I am pretty sure the statistics are telling us that overdoses are on the rise despite all the money thrown at it to slow it down. So I just refuse to join that parade around the block.

Don’t get me wrong, I reach out where I can and I support education, legislation, law enforcement and rehab centers. But as a Christian who has lost a son to an overdose I do not deeply involve myself in battles that offer little change and no lasting hope. For me it’s like shadow boxing with the expectation of landing a knockout punch on a phantom opponent. I am in a fight however but my strategy is very different from most. I am offering hope over more than drug addition. I present real lasting hope for all people over every addiction known to man through the chain breaking power of Jesus Christ. He alone beat death. It was foretold to us, it came to pass and now he offers all people freedom from the chains and abundant life in his name. This is good news and available to everyone by faith in his name.

Let’s face it; we all are addicts, we are all slaves to something. The following is God’s diagnosis of our slavish condition. “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” (Titus 3:3)  We are terminal but God prescribed the cure; faith in his Son, which is a difficult pill to swallow for most.

Our addictions are just symptoms of the disease that is killing us. We are all born with a spiritual and terminal disease called unbelief that manifests its symptoms in many fleshly ways. Jesus offered the cure to the religious leaders of his day but they refused it. He said to them,  “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” (John 8:23-24)

We are all slaves to our passions and pleasures until the shackles are unlocked and the chains drop away never to bind us again. Paul explains, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:17)

When Jesus sets us free we are truly free for the first time. Free from guilt, free from shame, free from hiding, free from sin and alive to God.

There are only two kinds of people in the world. Slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness; slaves to hedonism or slaves to Jesus. Every man will someday overdose, oh maybe not on drugs but we will all die because our preferred addictions. “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23)

But God has provided a cure…”but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Any other treatment plan for the disease has no power to deliver anybody from death.

I offer hope, this is my crusade if you will. It is my calling and it is my primary duty as a believer. Jesus is the bondage breaker, he defeated death and is seated at the right hand of God offering life and liberty by grace through faith in him. Believe on him, trust him, seek his face. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:8)

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:25-26)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death benefits: part 2- faith, hope and love

Some months ago I had a conversation with a person whose sister was brutally murdered. He said to me that he rejects the notion that everything happens for a reason. He feels that the death of his sibling was pointless and without purpose. As I listened to him speak my mind was at the other end of the spectrum. I thought to myself that there is reason why my son died, it is not meaningless and it has purpose. This is quite a juxtaposition. How do two people view death in two very different extremes? Was I just looking through rose colored glasses and was he looking through dark shades? No, I don’t think so.

It wasn’t that I am an optimist and he is a pessimist. The fact of the matter is that I view death through the lens of faith, and he, being without faith in Christ, cannot see what I see. If a person doesn’t know the meaning and source of life he certainly will never know the meaning behind death. But the bible answers both if a person is willing to listen and be enlightened by the truth concerning these confounding questions.

Why did Jesus allowed his friend to die?

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died (John 11:21&32)

Have you ever pleaded with God for someone to get well but God didn’t show up and your loved one died? Have you ever considered that maybe God actually ordained the sickness and allowed death to happen for a much greater purpose? Some very close friends of Jesus find themselves in this very situation a short time before his own crucifixion. Mary and Martha sent for Jesus to come and heal their brother Lazarus but Jesus purposefully delayed going for two days so that he would die.

There was a greater purpose in the death of Lazarus that could not be realized by healing his terminal illness. Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son might be glorified through it.” (John 11:4) This is a sobering reminder about our prayers and petitions that seem to be ignored by God. Father knows best! “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8)

Some might call into question the love of God in permitting such a thing, so John records that, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” (John 11:6) Love would certainly become evident to all when he arrived, he was troubled when he saw his friends and even his enemies grieving at the tomb. “Jesus wept” (John 11:36) He groans over the toll that sin has taken on his creation. Who can free the world from the chains of death? Christ and Christ alone! “We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:21-25) This is our blessed hope and this miracle of the raising of Lazarus is a prelude to the hope we have in Jesus who possesses the keys of death and the grave. How did he obtain the keys? He has destroyed the one who had the power of death through his own death, burial and resurrection from the dead. (Hebrews 2:14)

What miracle would give God most glory; the healing of Lazarus or the resurrection of Lazarus? This resurrection miracle is the crown jewel of all the miracles done by the Lord. It puts the glory and power of God on full display. But there is more that Jesus will accomplish in his delayed trip to Bethany. He is actually joyful over the fact that he was not going to heal Lazarus. Yes, Jesus was glad that he was not there. “Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sakes I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” (John 11:15) The glory of God is the primary purpose behind this death but building up the disciples faith is of great importance as well.

Death and other various trials will cause our faith to grow; The Lord finds joy in this and we should as well. This funeral built a deeper faith in God, a confident hope in the resurrection of the dead and a deeper love for Jesus to the glory of God. “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

What we believe should move us to action. What Jesus asks the family to do next is almost unbelievable if it hadn’t actually taken place. He says, “Take away the stone.” (John 11:39) For a more contemporary understanding of this I pictured Jesus handing me a shovel at the headstone of my son Jacob and saying, “Dig.” Martha objected for obvious reasons and I am sure I would have had the same concerns. But the Lord wants a faith and trust that obeys even the absurd and things we fear. He reminds Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40) Faith went to work and the eyes of everyone witnessed a dead man come to life and exit his grave. All this to the praise of God and his Son Jesus Christ.

What we know about God is not what gives God joy and pleasure, it is what we do with what we believe that delights the Lord. “And without faith it is impossible to please him.” (Hebrews 11:6) The disciples seen the glory of God because they believed and rolled the stone away. I ask myself the question, “What stones do I need to roll away in my life, by active faith, that I may behold the glory of God?” The Lord knew his beloved disciples believed in him but he engages their faith in essence by saying, “Don’t just say that you believe. Prove it! Put your hands to the stone and roll it away.”

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Jacob’s hope, a tree of life

A fear of forgetting

I was afraid that I would forget my son. I was afraid that I would not remember the sound of his voice, the smell of his clothes and gait of his steps. A strange and unfamiliar fear overtook me in the first hours, days and weeks after his death. I have heard others speak of this same kind of fear, I feared that my memory of Jake would be lost. Love reacts to this fear of forgetting by doing many wonderful things to remember the one we love. We want to remember the dead, we want to memorialize a life and to never forget. So we have a memorial stone made, a memorial tattoo inked, a memorial scholarship established, a memorial benefit hosted or a memorial fund started in the name of the deceased. My wife and I memorialized our 4 loved ones on one day by planting 4 trees in their memory.

Jacob's tree

Jacob’s tree

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GLMA cadet

What I want to forget

The fear of forgetting was graciously replaced with daily memories of his life. The fear of forgetting faded, yet there are many things that I have purposefully tried to forget. I want to forget the phone call, the sound of my wife’s sobbing voice, the ride home in unbelief and the sight of my dead son on the basement floor. I want to forget calling his brother and sister, choosing his casket and the moment I first seen him in it. I want to forget the funeral and the burial of 3 loved ones six weeks later on May 15th 2014. I would like to forget it all, yet it is all there in my memory. I don’t go there often, it is terrible place and very difficult to ponder and to write about. I refuse to live in those moments in time but I wander there from time to time in my mind, reliving the terrible aguish all over again. I want to forget but it is always there, forever burned into the memory of my life and all the things that surrounded his death.

Ways to remember

I have watched grievers very closely since since all this grief poured into my life. I have noticed many great and wonderful things being done on behalf of somebody who has died. Generally the cause is closely related to how the loved one died. Some join the fight against cancer, or get involved in suicide prevention. Some take up arms and join the fight against drugs or drunk driving with the hope that one life might be spared because of their effort. We honor the memory of a loved one by crusading with purpose. We hope to help someone else with the very thing that took the precious life that we lost and remember every day. These are all commendable causes but are not the things I have chosen to remember my son by.

What I cannot change

Jacob had anxiety, depression, panic attacks and self medicated with prescription opiates. There are many avenues I could have gone when he died. He was near graduation from the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, I could have establish a memorial scholarship fund for him there. I could go the route of drug awareness, education and enforcement to remember his life and perhaps prevent another person from overdosing. I could bring attention to depression and anxiety dissorders in our youth and crusade about that. All these things people are already doing and they are commendable causes pursued by hurting people. But I have never personally felt compelled to honor my son’s life in any of these areas. I certainly want to honor him and remember him for the greater good of somebody else but not in any of those ways. Why not you may ask? I see them all as being helpful, valuable, necessary and good but I find them to be temporal and not eternal. I am for education about drugs, depression and support greater law enforcement on narcotics, especially the drug dealers that have the MD embroidered after their name. But realistically I feel there there will never be enough education, cops or laws to slow this enormous problem down. Especially in a culture that seeks to numb every ache and pain imaginable by the ready pen of their family physician. I want to have an impact, I want to invest in something that has eternal reward and not just temporal value in this short fleeting vapor we call life.

What I can do

Most people involved in these honorable causes will tell you that if one person can be helped then it would be worth all the effort. I believe that, I hope for that, I want that just like everybody else. I have come to realize that I will likely never help the masses with my message, but perhaps I can help one person at a time.

What am I doing to honor the life of my son? I offer hope, this is the greatest good that I can do for individuals. I offer hope to every man ever born who find themselves helpless and hopeless to overcome their greatest fear. Death! That unspeakable, feared and dreaded word that comes to our minds and causes us to shutter when we realize that our chances of dying in our lifetime is 100%.

Who has defeated our hated enemy Death? And if someone has overcome death, did he make a way for me to overcome it too? In the history of mankind only one man, the God man Jesus Christ of Nazareth had power over death. Follow his life and you will find him raising the dead on many occasions. The record of it was foretold and is undeniable. The prophets prophesied of it and the New Testament writers were eyewitnesses to it. Even his most hated enemies could not deny his power over it. When he died, they mocked him by saying, “He saved others but himself he cannot save.” Jesus was no victim, he was fully in control of all the events leading up to his death and trough his resurrection from the dead. He alone claimed something that only God could say or do. “For this reason my Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:17-18 ESV) 

The tree of life and hope

Eyewitnesses saw Jesus stop a funeral procession in the village of Nain and raised a widows young son out of his coffin. (Luke 7:11-17) The enemies of Jesus heard him say, “Lazarus come forth” and saw him walk out of his grave fully alive after being dead for 4 days. (John 11) Jesus walked out of his own tomb after three days by his own power. (Luke 24:6) He showed himself alive for 40 days (Acts 1:3) to his disciples and about 500 believers saw him after his death burial and resurrection, (1 Corinthians 15:6) then he ascended to the right hand of God. (Acts 1:6-11) The great hope of the Christian faith is that death has been defeated by the Son of God. The soul that sins will die, (Ezekiel 18:20) and “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 ESV) God placed the punishment for our sin on him so that we may live in a wonderful hope. (2 Corinthians 5:21) By his stripes we are healed! (Isaiah 53)This is my hope filled message, this is what matters most to me because it has eternal, not temporal, implications.

Who would die for a lie? 11 of the 12 apostles died proclaiming that Jesus was alive and repeated his words, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV) The life of the apostle Paul was a life of constant persecution and suffering for this message of faith and hope in Jesus. Why would any man endure what he endured for a lie? He said, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…What do I gain if I fought with beasts in Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, Let us eat drink fro tomorrow we die.”(1 Corinthians 15:19-20, 32 ESV) 

The bible begins and ends in a garden and in the each garden there is the tree of life. Mankind was expelled from the garden and was graciously forbidden to eat from it. Every man will taste of death, but Christ tasted death for every man that we might we might gain entrance into the paradise of God and eat of the tree of life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life! He is our only hope, he is the good news to all mankind, he killed death for all who believe. He gives us great hope and precious promises, He says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:7) O taste and see that the Lord is good.

The trees we planted last summer serve as a memorial to the ones we have loved and lost. But each spring they push out new buds and flowers fill their branches. They serve as a reminder to me of the new life I have in Christ because of his resurrection from the dead. They are with the living one, the eternal one, the very God who became man so that we might have life through his name. Peter summed it up after he seen him alive from the dead. He said, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 ESV)

Grandmas tree

Grandma’s tree

Justins tree

Justin’s tree

If Jesus is in the the tomb, the words I type for you are a lie and a great self deception. But he is alive and this is the great eternal hope that I will present to everyone who is living a life of meaninglessness and hopelessness.

To you who believe I leave you with these words. “Now may the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good word and work.” (2 Thessalonians 2: 16-17 ESV)

Granny's tree

Granny’s tree

For you who do not believe I ask you a few questions. If you cannot beat death why do you reject Jesus the only one who did? What or who is your hope hope in without him? The bible says that you are in a desperate place, “Having no hope and without God in the world.” It doesn’t have to be because, “Now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace.” (Ephesians 2:12-14a ESV) He offers you a real hope, and a peace that passes all human comprehension if you will only trust him. Trust him today, for he is trustworthy!