Today, January 28th, 2023, marks the first anniversary of my late father's new birth in Christ.
My dad was eighty-two when he finally invited Jesus' light into his heart's darkness. While he sat on his favorite chair in the living room, waiting for Cleveland EMS, he prayed a simple yet authentically understanding prayer: "Jesus, be my light."
These four short words had an altering eternal impact.
If that sanctified red-brick house (which my dad and mom had lived in since 1973) could have spoken in that moment of delivery, there's no doubt my childhood home would have broken into boisterous, heavenly praise. After witnessing the persevering labor and travail—the real, raw endurance within its walls for many long years—how could it not have?
And all of W. 99th Street and beyond would have heard it.
Earlier that morning—already knowing that my mom and older brother had made the decision that Dad would need to be transported to the hospital when he woke—I was having my time with the Lord; and in the quiet darkness, God led me to Genesis. Concerned thoughts about my dad's physical and spiritual state were heavy on my mind. Then I read familiar words I had read so many times prior:
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.'" (1:3)
Right then, I knew the Spirit was speaking to me about my dad.
Over my dad's resistant heart, I could visualize darkness like a pitch-black veil obstructing light from penetrating through. Yet, there was "the Spirit of God." And just as the Spirit had hovered over the waters in the Creation story, I knew the Spirit had been hovering over my dad throughout the years.
So, in that still moment, once again, I prayed for my dad's salvation as I had done countless times prior. And in the context of those words I'd just read, I prayed that God's light would finally break through my dad's darkened heart. It wasn't a lengthy prayer, just a brief, sincere utterance to the only One who could draw my dad to Himself.
I then snapped pictures of the verse from my Bible and used my phone's editing feature to underline the verse and circle a comment I had previously written in the margin. When I texted the pictures to my brother, I gave no corresponding commentary. Only the pictures. I knew he would know why I had sent them and what I had just been praying by sending them. I knew he would know they were about our dad.
Why our dad chose to remain in darkness for as many years as he did is a reality I'll never understand, this side of Heaven. Yes, I know that Satan, "the god of this world" and the "father of lies," is extremely effective at what he does to keep humanity in from experiencing the light of Jesus. But my dad had many opportunities throughout my childhood and subsequent years to say yes to the Lord. He had numerous people praying, specifically and regularly, for his salvation for more than fifty years. He had head knowledge, a legitimate understanding, of what it meant to surrender his heart to Jesus—that it began with repentance of his sins and acceptance of God's offering of salvation, a gift of mercy and grace. He had witnessed his wife live a persevering Christian life, void of spiritual oneness with her spouse (though my dad was always supportive of my mom's decision to follow Christ and serve God, and to raise my brothers and me in church). Over the years, he had witnessed his three grown children surrender their hearts and lives to the Lord, and he had observed grandchildren do the same. And in his older years, he had witnessed JP Kouns, a lifelong friend, his best buddy—so similar to himself and just as resistant, and who'd been prayed for equally as much—say yes to Jesus; and from that moment on, live an authentically transformed life, a life that remarkably reflected Paul’s words that “if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
But despite these influences, and regardless of God's continual extension of love, and the Spirit's pursuit and invitation, my dad continued to resist.
Until the morning of January 28, 2022.
While waiting for an ambulance transport, my brother approached my dad and began sharing the Scripture I had texted him earlier that morning. Prompted by the Spirit, Stanton proceeded with a brief discourse (one among many Spirit-led opportunities that he had seized with my dad over the years). He reminded him that Jesus is the true light that came into the world and that He brings light into the darkness of a person's heart.
This was not a new truth my dad had never heard before. My dad knew this truth. It wasn't as if my brother suddenly said the missing, magic words my dad always needed to hear yet never had. And it wasn't as if my dad had never before faced a serious, uncertain moment, where his health was concerned, making him more inclined to heightened thoughtfulness about an eternity separated from God. He had.
But at this moment—at this sanctified, sovereign moment—my dad could not resist God's loving tug any longer. With readied decisiveness, his tongue finally loosened and he prayed these words: "Jesus, be my light."
Oh, praise the triune God who kept offering the gift of salvation!
Such relentlessness! Such mercy!
As it would end up, my dad only lived thirteen days following that salvation moment. On February 9th at approximately 8:30 pm, surrounded by family who loved him so much and had prayed for his salvation for so long, he breathed his final earthly breath in that same living room spot where he'd recently been born again.
I'll never hear again, this side of Heaven, my dad's deep, distinctive voice. And his teasing ways are now but a memory. Judge Judy's no-nonsense rhetoric isn't daily blaring from the living room television; and the chair at the dining room window, where he ritualistically enjoyed his morning coffee and Cleveland Plain Dealer, sits empty. When I dwell on these realities and so many others, sadness often consumes me. And sometimes, from just a fleeting thought about death's finality on Earth—that my dad is no longer here and never will be—my eyes fill up with tears.
Even so, I know my dad is more alive right now than he's ever been, and his life in Heaven will go on and on. And I know that I, with the rest of my family, will be reunited with him one day.
I know these truths because God's true Word tells me so. In this I have peace. In this I have hope. In this, I have abundant joy.
And so, my daughter's sorrow does not get the final say.
Neither does Death. Nor the Grave. Nor Satan. Nor Sin.
A couple of years ago, I heard pastor-author Mark Batterson giving an interview on a Christian television program. He was discussing his most recent book, which had recently been released. One of the things he shared in that interview is how God had healed him of asthma, a condition he'd lived with his entire life. For more than forty years he had prayed about his healing, never giving up, though nothing had changed. He just continued to ask, continued to bring his desire to God who can do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20).
Then, one day, God healed him. Miraculously and completely healed him. An individual who'd been hospitalized multiple times for serious asthma attacks and had lived with an inhaler his entire life, Batterson was instantly healed, never to need an inhaler again. He was healed so completely that he trained for and ran the Chicago Marathon.
Batterson wrote about his miracle in an article, posted on his website. In it, he relayed how he had challenged his church to "pray the bravest prayer they could pray." He clarified:
"By bravest prayer I mean the prayer you can barely believe God for because it seems impossible. It's often the prayer you've prayed a hundred times that hasn't been answered but you pray it one more time anyway. For me the bravest prayer was that He would heal my asthma. And it was brave because asthma is all I had ever known."
Batterson's words make me think of my heart's prayer the morning my dad finally said yes to Jesus. Though I didn't record the prayer's words in my journal (as I often do with my prayers), I know it went something like this:
Once again, I'm here, Father, crying out to you for my dad's salvation. I'm asking you, once again, to make a way where there seems to be none. Light was the first reality you spoke into existence on Earth. And so, I'm asking you to overwhelm the darkness enveloping my dad's heart with your overwhelming light. I'm asking you—One. More. Time.—to save his soul. Yes, I want his body to be healed so he's no longer hurting; more importantly, I want you to set free his soul from darkness.
Though I knew full well the will of the Lord regarding my dad's salvation—that "He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9)—I also understood that my dad had been created with free will. I knew how proud and stubborn of a man my dad was and that he had spurned the Spirit's invitation countless times, over his lifetime. I knew that though God had always done and would continue to do His part to deliver my dad from Satan's dominion, my dad had to humble himself and finally stop resisting.
And so, once again, I prayed.
And I know my brothers were praying.
And my mom was too.
And I suppose you could call each of our prayers a "bravest prayer" because each fits Batterson's description that such prayer is one "you've prayed a hundred times that hasn't been answered but you pray it one more time anyway." Only God knows, but I feel certain that over fifty years of travailing, the prayers were in the thousands; so, I guess you could say there were thousands of "bravest prayer[s]" uttered throughout those laboring years.
In his article, Batterson wrote, "God doesn’t answer 100 percent of the prayers we don’t pray!" (italics added). That's a practical yet compelling statement. Though we don't fully understand other people's choices or God's perfect, sovereign ways, we know with certainty that we can always trust His heart. Always trust His character. Always trust His wisdom. Always trust His love. Always trust in His infinite mercy. And always trust in His boundless, amazing grace.
This motivates us to keep on praying.
Keep on laboring.
Keep on uttering those "bravest prayer[s]," time and time again.
Fellow sojourner, I don't know whose soul you are presently interceding for, or exactly how many pages have been turned on life's big calendar. I don't know this person's background and history, or why he or she chooses to remain in darkness. And, I do not know how long it will be before the light of Jesus breaks through. Neither do you.
But this I do know:
Whether a parent, spouse, child, family member, or friend, never stop laboring. Never stop travailing. Never stop praying those "bravest prayer[s]."
That long-awaited birth could very well occur with the next "bravest prayer" you pray.
