On December 9th, 2004 I trusted Christ. Here is my brief reflection nine years later:

Nine years ago tonight I:
repented of my sins/
knelt at his feet/
wept for joy/
trusted Jesus/
believed on the gospel/
was called by God/
was forgiven by God/
was transferred into his Kingdom/
was made free/
was adopted as a child of God/
was justified/
was redeemed/
began to follow Jesus/
died to self/
was given hope/
was made alive in Christ/
was renewed in heart/
was given the Spirit/
sin became disgusting/
Christ became glorious//

Nine years later in the face of possible death:
Christ remains glorious/
Christ remains my joy/
Christ remains my hope/

(To the theologians in the crowd, I have not tried to purposely organize the list into any ordo salutis ;)

I was wrong to ignore fiction so long.

I started off young as a reader, which set me on a good foot, but one of the laments I have of my adolescence is that I wasn’t encouraged to continue being a reader. Sports and then music took over my life. I did the minimal in English classes (though I managed to score high—how?) and you’d be shocked at how few of the classics I’ve read. It wasn’t until I became a Christian at age 20 when my new-found love of the Bible kindled in me a desire to read and learn in order to know God. This meant reading lots of non-fiction as I sought to learn the languages, culture, history, etc. of the Bible. It lead me into degrees in philosophy and biblical studies. All good.

But along the way fiction has played a small to minimal role in my life. I’ve justified myself by thinking it was of a second rate. Sure, it’s a good hobby to have; something to unwind with; something for entertainment.

But I was wrong.

A couple weeks ago, as my mental strength returned in between chemo rounds, I picked up C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy. From the first chapter of Out of the Silent Planet I was enthralled by his ability to write. And I mean write! His words were a joy to read and a story that starts out with a Cambridge philologist didn’t hurt getting me into the narrative either!

But something really changed in me as I kept reading and especially as I moved into and through Perelandra. I started to see life differently and the romantic part of me came alive. It awakened imaginations and feelings about life that were seemingly suppressed down below. It has changed my thinking, my processing, my writing. There’s no way I won’t return to my academic studies a better thinker. There’s no way I won’t return to reading the Bible more romantically. That’s already been the case day by day.

Perhaps the greatest joy of this reading was Lewis’s ability to magnificently retell the story of Eden, good and evil, temptation, Fall, Incarnation, redemption, and New Creation that most awakened in me greater praise to God. At first I thought Lewis was brilliant—and, well, he was. But then I came to see that really he understood God and the Bible so well (not to mention other classic literature) that he was able to tell the ‘Old Story’ in such a way that I have come back to the Bible with awakened eyes. It was me who was dead. Lewis helped me see beyond him, his writing, and his story to the magnificence of God and his marvelous creative and redemptive work. And here he used fiction to do it.

I’ve had to reflect hard on Paul’s strong language in his letter to the Philippian church:

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.” (Philippians 1:21-26 NIV)

What should I pray for as I lie in a hospital bed with Leukemia?

Should I pray for healing, desiring to live a long earthly life? Or, should I pray in some sense to die that I might “gain” Christ and be with him face to face?

There is a tension and Paul in his own situation recognized it: “I am torn between the two.” I feel the tension too in my situation.

To begin with the dying aspect, think of the gain! Done with pain and in the arms of Jesus. Obtaining the outcome of my salvation. So beautiful.

But I think about what I would leave behind. The hardest part of this journey so far has been the emotional turmoil of thinking about my wife losing a husband and my kids losing their dad. It churns me up inside. Ugh, their pain sends me into tears. (Paul didn’t have a wife and kids!)

I think also of what God has done in my life by his wonderful grace to set my heart aflame for him. I want to have many years to share this with my family and in ministry to whoever God would be pleased to bring into my path. I want to preach and write more! I’ve learned so much! And I would love to keep growing over the next 30-40 years in this way.

But whereas Paul was convinced he would remain with in the body for a time “for your progress and joy in the faith” I don’t know that in my situation.

So, how am I going to pray in response?

“Lord, I desire above all that you would be made to look wonderful through my sickness. I desire to grow in my own knowledge and love of you. You put my sin to death and made me alive in Christ and I have no greater joy! It may be that you will get the most glory by my passing. It may be that you want to show yourself sufficient when all else is stripped away and you have done that; thank you!

“But I desire as well to continue on in the body (to live is Christ) to continue with my brothers and sisters for my and their progress and joy in the faith, that through my being with my family and others our boasting in Christ will abound.”

“Father, you are in control of all things. Though this cancer is trying to kill me, you may decide otherwise. I do hope for that. But I trust your good ways; whatever the outcome.

“There is no greater joy than knowing you. I pray these things in Christ’s name, Amen.”

No matter what his grace is sufficient and he is the joy of my heart. I and my family have hope beyond the grave because Jesus has conquered sin and death.

There are many ways to leave a legacy and many types of legacies to leave.

Ultimately I’m concerned with one that brings glory to Christ, seeing myself and others built up in the knowledge and love of him as he spreads his fame through the earth.

After all, what will remain when the refiner’s fire is done with us?

With the possibility of death I’ve been given the opportunity to think about this from a very intentional perspective. As I reflect, I realize that a lot of my “legacy” (‘Christ working in me’ may be better short hand for the time being) will be in things not easily pointed to. I’ve had the blessing of being involved in people’s lives through discipling younger believers along with less intentional one-on-one friendships that have revolved around a mututal bond in Christ as brothers and sisters. My legacy will also be made in my family. My hope is that my wife is closer to Christ and will continue to grow closer to Christ because I’ve been her husband (though I know I’ve failed in this regard along the way; thankfully God keeps teaching me and growing me). My legacy will “live on” in my children, whether I get to be their father for the next 20+ years or not. (The oldest is currently three and a half and the youngest is 7 months.)

One of the more intentional ways I’ve wanted to leave a legacy for my boys is to write them each a letter that they can read from my hands when they’re older. Here’s the copy and pasted Facebook post I wrote a couple weeks ago as I began the emotional process:

“Would you pray for me as I begin to write letters to my boys to read and have when they’re older?

“It’s an emotional process but in the last hour as I’ve started it’s been very helpful for me as well.

“I’m writing to them to both share my desires for them but also give them a picture of myself that only I can paint. When my dad died a lot of knowledge and life stories left with him. If I pass I want them to have some of that written down. So, I’m sort of writing a mini-autobiography in the process.”

Would you pray for me on this as well?

And consider for yourself the story God has given you and the legacy you are creating even now. Will Christ be made much of through your friendships, family, and even strangers you come across?

What would you do if you knew you only had two days to live? What about two months? Two years? Forty years? Would your priorities change based on which dating you were given?

Well, I haven’t been given an exact time. None of my doctors are God.

All the same, with an aggresive Leukemia trying to kill me, I’ve been living as though I only have two or three months. I’m not suggesting I know this is my exact timeframe—and I haven’t been considered terminal, the doctors are treating me in the hopes of curing me—but the likelihood of my being put into remission has, naturally speaking, been termed low by the experts who have poured over my case.

So, what has happened to my priorities since September when I relapsed?

Knowing, loving, and serving Christ has been my first priority since my conversion at age 20. That isn’t to say I have done this perfectly—far from it!—but by God’s grace the trajectory of my life has been in this direction. Being sick with cancer, however, has had a way of focusing it and intensifying it. When you stand losing all things in this life—family included—what will you cling to? Again by God’s grace, Christ has shown himself sufficient. He has provided joy through the deepest times of pain, which not only includes the physical pain, but through the emotional pain of thinking of leaving a wife without a husband and two young boys with a dad.

And certainly the priority of my family has intensified. There is much to reflect on here especially as I consider whether I have always put family where it belonged, above work and school. I’ll save those reflections for now.

But many things have dropped off of my priority list. I want to make some further reflections on this in future posts as well, but I have given over to God all my desires and hopes for academic work, including publishing. I pulled out of a book I was co-authoring with a top NT scholar that would have been published with one of the major Christian academic publishers. I have taken some steps to get a few last things done to tie up loose ends in order to be responsible with the work God had given me time to do while I was in remission. I’m hopeful you’ll see a co-authored piece on translation theory in print, maybe next year. I have, however, put aside a peer-reviewed journal article that has returned with some revisions that I was pretty excited about—I and some others think it makes a decent contribution to a topic in Greek language study and our reading of John 11. If I get healthy again, I’ll revise it and get it in print. But if I don’t, I feel very free that Christ’s plan for me is better. I can rest secure in his good plan that might not involve my participation in Christian scholarship. And that’s okay. They’ll get on without me!

[My love of Greek and the study of it has not dropped off the list though, even if perhaps it is last. I think I have some neat reflections about this to come and being who God has made us each to be.]

So, I haven’t had a major shift in priorities with the prospect of death put before me. Some things dropped off my list but predominately my focus on Christ has simply intensified along with the subordinate but correlate ministry to my family and friends.

I think the following passage deserves contemplation since everyone is appointed to die once and Jesus told this to his followers who also didn’t know how long a life they would have:

‘Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.’ (Matthew 16:24-27 NIV)

Notice it doesn’t say “wait until you get cancer” to get your priorities right.