A Near-Death Experience
Matthew 19:14
“But Jesus said, let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such a these.”
“God used some very daring people to save me.” When I ran across this statement in one of my dad’s journals, I stopped reading for a while in order to recover. This statement is incredibly sobering, and catapulted me to a state of gratitude.
Children who are led away from Jesus is something that is not only saddening, but also maddening to me. Let me explain. The choices parents make that hinder children from wanting to know about spiritual things, knowing Jesus or following Jesus, simply breaks my heart. In fact, I believe these choices can begin or propagate a cycle of unbelief in their lives. And let’s be honest, the statistics are staggering. Although we know that all things are possible with God, we understand that when a person doesn’t come to Christ as a child, the potential of breaking the cycle of unbelief in the teenage or adult years drops tremendously.
My dad experienced this kind of home. He was born into a home with no parental guidance to point him to Jesus. There was no spiritual conversation, no encouragement to seek God, no Biblical foundation to build on. In fact, Dad’s parents rebelled against building a godly home. Their home was worldly, fleshly and self-centered. Based on the statistical probabilities, Dad should have never come to Christ. For Dad, the cycle of unbelief appeared to be set, and the outlook was grim.
Not only was his home life worsening, so, too, was his disease. “God used some daring people to save me.” That statement was true throughout his life. In fact, in the upcoming blog posts, I will refer to this statement again as it seems to follow Dad’s story. There were things that Dad was helpless to do, and God used other people to intervene in his life and do for him what he could not do for himself.
We’ll circle back to his family circumstances next week. For now - guess which daring person God used to save his life at age 1!
Dad had been very sick around his first birthday with very serious internal hemorrhages that were painful and debilitating. This kind of illness required radical steps. By the age of 1, Dad received his first blood transfusion. Now that may not sound like a radical step, but the manner in which that occurred is certainly uncommon today. And just as unlikely as the method, was the man God used to save him.
Simply put, Dad was placed on one table, someone else was placed on another table and he was given a direct transfusion - no blood filtering process to clean the blood, no bag of plasma hanging from a piece of equipment. It was a direct transfusion, from one person to another.
And here is the miracle God used to save him. The daring person that provided the transfusion to my dad was his own father. That is right. My godless, brawling, fighting grandfather was moved to step up and help his son. This is a real-life miracle, knowing the life this man lived and how he treated my Dad for years. I am so thankful to God for my grandfather’s willingness, despite his faults, to save my dad.
Although my grandfather, and no human, really, can be compared with our Heavenly Father, I can’t help but think of how our Heavenly Father sacrificed for us. What an amazing picture! To counter the sinful act of unbelief and rejection of Himself and His righteousness, God took the initiative and shed His own blood for us. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He shed His pure, innocent, sinless blood for ours which is contaminated by the sin of unbelief. Thank God that my grandfather intervened in Dad’s life, and thank God that He, Himself, intervened in our lives to provide salvation. The course of unbelief and debilitating illness was set in Dad’s life, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Ephesians 2:4 - 5)
Next week, we’ll look a little more at his family dynamics, and how God intervened to directly counter unbelief and change the trajectory of Dad’s life - and mine.
Think About It
How has God moved in your life, or who has He used to move you from a path of unbelief to believing and trusting Him?
If you are still living in unbelief, take some time to evaluate the circumstances and encounters in your life that you may have ignored or rebelled against that might actually be God drawing you to Himself to break the cycle of generational unbelief in your life or the life of your family.
Are you a daring person? Who are some unbelieving people in your life that God may be calling you to step in, to “save”, to befriend, to encourage toward the path of belief and redemption.
Pray
Take some time to thank God for the daring people in your life. Ask God to give you spiritual eyes to see and step into the lives of the unbelieving ones around you. If you are in a cycle of unbelief, ask God to begin to break those chains and bring you into a full, free relationship with Him.
If you are struggling to break the cycle of generational unbelief, I’d love to talk with you and encourage you. Please reach out to me at david@davidsmithministry.com