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Articles by Jack Canady |
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PRISONER OF WAR Dear Leaders Chosen of God, It was mid-afternoon. My friend Bill (not his real name) and I were having coffee and a huge muffin at Perkins Pancake House. A meeting he had requested months before was finally taking place. I think he both needed and feared our time together. It is not always easy to open up to another person. Chosen leaders, never violate such a trust. His salary per year is safely in the six figures. He and his wife have six children, all walking with God. Their oldest son is studying to be a doctor. The second is heading toward a career as an engineer. "I want you to read this before we talk," he said, as he handed me one sheet of paper. "My parents are nearing the end of their lives. My sight is fading, my hearing is fading, I awake with increasing aches and pains and I know it's only going to get worse. My children are leaving and in some respects are totally ungrateful for the blood, sweat and tears we've poured into them...My boss tells me when and where to travel, separating me from my family in a job that's going nowhere, but I can't leave...ever...because I have to pay the bills". What I knew about this man, husband and father did not add up to what I was reading. He was not done. "But the thing that bothers me more than anything else is how I could be so extraordinarily blessed and be so completely and continuously ungrateful...I fear that we as a culture, a church and specifically that I personally have become so spoiled rotten that I pitch a fit any time God doesn't give me exactly what I want." He saw the contradiction between what was really happening and what was going on inside him. That was good. What made the picture darker in my mind was how he closed. "I live in terror that he will subject me to (a) POW camp experience in order to break my pride and teach me gratefulness". For decades he and his family had been immersed in a closed and closely knit church movement that emphasized a whole list of rules purported to be from God Himself. Every time they got one set down pat, more rules were added. If you really wanted to be accepted by God you and your family had to keep those rules. If not...It was that "if not" that caused me to be concerned. His family had recently stepped away from that system but the web of man's rules and threats seemed to still linger. We talked for perhaps two hours. I really don't know how much I was helping him. Then I said, "You know Bill, what you are talking about reminds me of a dark period in my walk with God. I was in my mid- forties. I am not proud of the fact, but for several months, almost a year, I became very cynical about where I was in life. I didn't feel I was providing well for my family. I was serving God out in the middle of nowhere. Everybody in my church was making more money than I and I did not like it. "I would not have admitted it out loud but I was upset with God. Fortunately He was patient and gracious with me. I finally came to my senses. When I did, I gathered my family around me. 'If we are so poor why is it that every family in the church spends all their time at our house? We are not poor. We are not poor we are rich. We just don't have any money.' We all burst out laughing – and my dark journey was over." "I'm 48," he exclaimed! A light seemed to go on. "Thank you for your time and your help," he continued as he vigorously shook my hand. Bill is a good man and a godly one. His oldest son, hearing his dad telling him he felt like a failure said in surprise. "Are you kidding Dad? You are the godliest man I know on earth." This leader chosen of God is walking through a dark period. God is not going to put him in a POW camp to break his pride and make him grateful. That is where he is right now. God's Spirit is going to unlock the gate and let him out. "This poor man cried out, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them," (Psalm 34:6,7). In His love, Pastor Jack |
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