I Thought By Now… PART 1

“Walking around these walls… I thought by now they’d fall… but…”

These are the opening words to Elevation Worship’s  song, “Do It Again.” Do you know what the next part is? If not, it’ll just be a few more paragraphs until I tell you!

Alright, you know that my son, Micah, has/had Kawasaki Disease. AND you may also know that June 9th (which at the time of releasing this article is next week) is HOPEFULLY his final appointment with the heart doctors as we hope he is 100% healed by then.

Yet in these last two weeks, I slumped back into the same sort of dark and despair kind of mindset that I had after coming home from the hospital with Micah back in December. This darkness only hit me for a day or two but it was such a stark reminder of where God has pulled me from.

And how did I get there? Well, similarly as before, it was because we had to take Micah to the emergency room.

It all began… with a cut. A cut? Yes! A cut on his finger. Now, most kids would’ve just healed up quickly after some pressure, polysporin, and bandaging. But Micah? His body is pumped full of blood thinners every day. 40mg of Aspirin orally every morning. 20mg of Enoxaparin injected every 12 hours into his muscle tissue.

So when he bleeds… he bleeds. At first, things were okay. About a week and a half in, it had already healed over nicely and things were looking up. But then he developed a pyogenic granuloma. I’m not going to explain it because I don’t fully understand it so feel free to google that term! Anyways, a massive bulge/growth of blood developed right underneath his cut. And then it burst. And it gushed. We took him to the hospital to have emergency surgery on his finger and some stitches. I couldn’t go in because, due to COVID-19, only one caregiver was allowed per patient. Also, someone had to watch Asher!

The nurses and doctors were impressed at the amount of blood. But he and my wife came back that night and things seemed okay again. And then the pyogenic granuloma returned. And now we’ve got to see a specialist and they’ll have to perform a more in-depth surgery to make sure it gets taken care of.

Obviously, this isn’t too big of a deal; but for my family, it was a hard hit to take. We’ve been through a lot with Micah’s health and this just seemed like such an unnecessary allowance of suffering.

And like I mentioned for about a day or two I felt so distant from God. I felt sick of asking Him to heal Micah. I mean, what’s the point if it doesn’t happen, right?

Wrong. And that’s where we get into Elevation Worship’s song:

“Walking around these walls
I thought by now they’d fall
But You have never failed me yet
Waiting for change to come
Knowing the battle’s won
For You have never failed me yet”

Waiting for Micah’s healing is like walking around the walls of Jericho. And on the seventh day on the sixth lap, I’m thinking… God! I thought we’d be done by now!

As we go into next week, we find out if God’s done it. We find out of God’s healed Micah’s precious little heart completely. And that’s why I titled this article PART 1; because there is a PART 2 coming but I just don’t know what it will be like. I have FAITH that it will be what God wants. Because we all know what I want. And I TRUST that it will be best for Micah. Because we all know what I think is best for Micah. And oddly…

Oddly enough, those aren’t always the same: what God wants, what I want. What God thinks, what I think. You may have just thought, “Well duh. Every sermon ever has taught me that.”

I’m talking about my kid. My kid. Don’t you think his healing would be what God wants? Don’t you think that that’s the best thing for my little bright man? Oddly…

Oddly enough, sometimes it’s not. I mean, clearly! This happened! And God allowed it.

So that leaves us here.

And I know you’re probably, hopefully, matching this up as an analogy for what you’re going through: divorce, cancer, bankruptcy, criticism, doubt, emancipation, anything! Life’s full of injustices and heartbreaks.

But can I tell you something? Something I learned on the drive home from dropping Micah off at the hospital.

I’ve been working from home these past few months and so I don’t drive much which means I don’t get to listen to my favourite radio station which plays Christian music all day long.

And so I’m driving home from the hospital and I’m thinking I’ve got to drown out my thoughts, tears, doubt, anger, etcetera, etcetera. So I turn on the radio, to CHVN (my favourite station), and this is what I heard:

“Fear is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
‘Cause fear, he is a liar”

Zach Williams’ song “Fear Is A Liar” had never hit me so hard.

My fear… of what could happen to Micah. Your fear of ________________… It robs us. In the above lyrics, Zach personifies Fear which I think is a neat concept. And Fear… He takes our breath. Stops us in our steps. Robs our rest. Steals our happiness.

Fear robs us of something else too. I realized, driving through Winnipeg that Sunday afternoon; one kid in my van, one in the hospital, that my fear… blocks my faith. I was afraid Micah was going to bleed out in that hospital and that was it. But that thought BLOCKED my faith in God’s miraculous, healing love. Don’t get me wrong; God can do what He wants. But in my heart… my fear kept me from having faith in God. I couldn’t think about what He could do. I was just thinking about what could happen.

God, in His word, has the words “fear not” at least 80 times.

God, speaking to us now as His grafted-in children, says in Isaiah 43:

“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
I have called you by name; you are mine.”
Isaiah 43:1b NLT

God says straight up that we shouldn’t be afraid because He’s bought us. He’s bought us from death and suffering and hell with the blood of Jesus Christ so we don’t have to be afraid of whatever hell-on-earth we may face… We’re His. And that’s that.

But don’t get me wrong; my dark days came after this thought. I felt emotionless. I felt unable to pray to God. I felt unable to engage in His word. I read things like:

“We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us.”
2 Corinthians 1:8b-10 NLT

Which gave me some comfort. And:

“For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” He is the one whom Silas, Timothy, and I preached to you, and as God’s ultimate “Yes,” he always does what he says. For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.”
2 Corinthians 1:19-20 NLT

Which told my mind that all God’s promises are YES and that Christ is the ultimate YES and that, in Him, I can be safe because will Micah be healed: YES, will we see an end to this pain: YES, will my son go back to the way he was: YES. But that verse told my mind those truths. It didn’t tell my heart. I felt numb. 

And then I closed my eyes. And my mind thought so many things. Like:

“You’re selfish for wallowing in this. It could be so much worse.”

Yeah. It could be worse. It could be way worse but I’m justified in feeling my pain because I, and you, are human! So we can’t let our little minds or other people’s negative influence tell us that we can’t feel our pain because that only delays what needs to happen. And what needs to happen… is this:

A connection with God.

Sometimes it’s a confrontation. Sometimes it’s in desperation. Sometimes it’s in whatever form your faith can stomach.

How do we do that? I don’t know. Sometimes I get it in the word but this time I think it was in prayer. I don’t even know. But all of a sudden, with my eyes close, I felt this message. I don’t know if this was from God’s lips or if it was His Holy Spirit guiding my mind to come to a conclusion: I don’t care. This was the message:

Micah is God’s child before He’s my child. And so don’t you (me) think God would do what’s best for him? Obviously God is going to take care of this kid in the way that God sees right.

And I tell you; I felt like the weight that was in my heart dissolved. I felt comforted. Because I connected with God. But in our despair, it is so hard to do that! People don’t get it! I didn’t get it before 2020. When people say “go to God” and it’ll fix your pain I ask the question: “WHAT IF GOD IS THE PAIN? WHAT THEN?”

Thankfully, God’s never the pain. He’s never the pain. Yes, He may have allowed the pain. But He’s not the pain. He’s the cure. He’s the ointment. He’s the bandage. He’s the graft. He’s every fixing right down to a RESURRECTION!

That’s what God is to us when we’re in the darkest of holes. And as soon as our hearts will allow us to grasp that, as mine did, all this garbage becomes so much easier to deal with. Easier… not easy.

So that’s my two weeks. And next week… I sure hope the healing has come.

My wife reached out to Dr. Sam to ask him what kind of comfort there is in all this. He said Jesus Christ is the ultimate comfort. And then he prayed for Micah and prayed that the doctors would be astounded by a supernatural healing. I pray that too. And you should too. Have faith that it will take place. BUT we’ve got to remember that if God doesn’t answer… If God doesn’t RESCUE us in the timeline that we want… That means He’s got something else planned. And God’s plans are always better. And so there’s comfort in the waiting. (Head on over to YouTube to watch a video I made detailing these events in a simple-to-grasp illustration aimed at kids – release date is June 12th so hang tight!)

We need to remind our fear-drenched hearts that God is still on our side! God is for us. God’s promises still stand and they’re fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And remember “Do It Again” – God has never failed us yet. A critic would say, “God never fails you and He never will fail you. Saying God hasn’t failed you YET is heresy.”

Well, guess what critic; sometimes it feels like God has failed us.

I’ve led you to this song before and I’m going to do it again (no that’s not a pun: it’s a different song).

Bethel Music’s John Mark and Sarah McMillan’s “King Of My Heart” has an often confusing bridge for people.

It goes like this:

“You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down