Don't Waste Chase's Life # 3

We will waste Chase's life if we are more aware of how difficult this trial is instead of being preoccupied with Christ and His all-sufficient grace.

On the morning of 2.24.06 I was sitting in Starbucks spending time with Jesus. It was just over a month before Jenni and I were knocked to our knees with the news that our little Chase had a life terminating birth defect. Little did I know that on that day God was preparing me for what I was to face for the next year + of my life. I remember crying at the corner table b/c I was so affected by how God was speaking to me through His Word. I remember going home that night wanting to tell Jenni how God met me and wanting to prepare her for the day suffering would come knocking on our door. We heard the knock on 4.5.06. What you are about to read is my journal entry on the morning of 2.24.

Meditation on Psalm 63…
David is King here in this Psalm (v. 11). And we know that someone is attempting to terminate his life (v. 9). We know from 2 Sam 15.23 that the individual seeking David’s life is his very own son Absalom.

What must it have been like for David? He was experiencing relational abandonment and estrangement from his very own son that he loved and sought to raise up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But not only was their relational abandonment and estrangement, there was hatred that was expressing itself in murderous desires.

What does David do in this moment? What does he think of? Where does he go? Who does he seek? David’s example is worth imitating for he is “a man after God’s own heart.”

David prays. This entire Psalm is addressed to one person, GOD. He asks for one thing – GOD himself. He doesn’t pray for protection, victory, silence, peace, rest, relational reconciliation…he prays for God (v. 1).

David needed to know and to feel that God’s steadfast love was and is better than life (v. 3). David could have been killed in the middle of the night by a traitor in his army. How did he sleep at night? How did he keep his eyes and mind off of the difficulty in the situation? He reminded himself that the steadfast love of the Lord was better than life. It was better than the possibility or the reality of being killed in the night. But this rest is not a rest that is easily felt. David needed God to answer this prayer and help him not just to taste the reality of this truth but to feel it as well.

OH TO KNOW MY HEAVENLY FATHER LIKE THIS! To value and treasure God in such a way that all else pales in comparison. Ease pales, comfort pales, exaltation pales, pleasure pales, all things pale in comparison to knowing and treasuring Christ. Would this not be better than all the world could offer?!?

When all else is put in its proper reality and God is central and engulfs all of our hearts affections, desires, trust, then we will sing for joy, b/c we will not account our life as of any value only that we might behold the beauty and glory of the Lord in His sanctuary.

When there are trials in my life where is it that I turn? I usually go to the purpose of these trials to provide me comfort. I go to James 1. How often though do I go to Psalm 63? How often do I think, “I need to fellowship and be with my Jesus?”

There will be times in my life where I will be fearful and heart broken, where will I turn? Will I drown in thoughts of how difficult my life is in that moment? What will be shining as the all encompassing value and desire of my heart? Will it be God? Lord may it be so.

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12.1-3) If we do not fix our eyes on Christ and spend more time learning and growing in our love for Him as opposed to drowning in the difficulty of our suffering we will waste Chase’s life.