April 2021

IT HURTS MORE THAN DEATH

I cemented my ten-year-old feet to the floor at the side of my big brother’s coffin. They told me he was dead, but I had watched enough cartoons to know that death means nothing. I had witnessed Wile E. Coyote time and again attempting to capture the Road Runner but dying repeatedly: crushed by a falling boulder, plummeting from a cliff and striking the deep canyon floor, flattened by a steamroller, smashed by a train, pulverized by a wrecking ball, exploded by dynamite; you name it, nothing could finish him off.

He always came back; the scoundrel was alive and well in the next episode.

However, when the lid of that oak box was sealed shut and the black Saskatchewan soil covered my brother’s casket, a cold knife stabbed deeply into my heart. I grew up overnight and stopped watching cartoons.

Everyone who has ever experienced the death of a loved one knows the feeling. God Himself knows, for He lost His own Son to the cruel clutches of death.

Though one day “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,” it still hurts. However, I have discovered something that hurts even more than death: watching a loved one walk away from God.

René and I receive one prayer request more than any other, and it is this: “Please, pray for my children.” These parents would rather be crushed by a falling boulder; the impact would hurt far less.

Why are we losing so many of our children and grandchildren? What can we do to stem the tide of young people leaving our churches?

Since we have worked with youth most of our lives, René and I know that only God can raise the dead. We are like Ezekiel standing in a valley of dry bones. In Ezekiel 37:11, the LORD identifies these dry bones as His people, who say, “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!”

He replies, “O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, … Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, … Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it” (Ezekiel 37:12-14).

It’s now time for action.

We’re tired of powerless, theatrical religion that merely entertains, like a misleading cartoon.

It’s time for God’s people to pray, for He has promised: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Jesus knows what we’re up against. “As the world’s Redeemer, Christ was constantly confronted with apparent failure. He, the messenger of mercy to our world, seemed to do little of the work He longed to do in uplifting and saving. Satanic influences were constantly working to oppose His way. But He would not be discouraged” (The Desire of Ages, pg. 679).

Do not be discouraged.

Jesus relentlessly pursues each one who is “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), working to break the spell of the evil one and set the captive free.

René and I challenge you to commit time every day to pray for those who have given up on God, for He has not given up on them. He loves your children, and He is on your side. He assures you: “For I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children” (Isaiah 49:25).

~ Mike Lemon