HEELCATCHER

When a comedian like Robin Williams commits suicide, it certainly wakes you up.

Here is a man who looks like he has it all…success, adoration, wealth, fame. And here is a man who looks like he has a positive view on life. After all, the concept of a "depressed comedian" is a contradiction in terms. We expect that the one who makes us laugh at life can make himself laugh at life as well.

But Robin Williams had a dark side or "demons" to battle, as the world might say.

A lonely childhood. An unsupportive father. Three marriages. Alcohol and drug addiction. A lifelong battle with depression.

Robin Williams was obviously looking for something in this world that he could never find.

C.S. Lewis' once said: "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

And Solomon, a man with all the intelligence, pleasure, and wealth this world can afford, said it quite bluntly: “Absolute futility,” says the Teacher. “Absolute futility. Everything is futile" (Ecclesiastes 1:1).

Robin Williams came to see life in this world in its starkest terms. Futile. Depressing. Lonely. Dark. He gained practically everything that this world could offer and found it to be empty.

Ironically he committed suicide in a place called Paradise Cay.

We don't know what ultimately caused Robin Williams to take his life. The Proverbs say, "The heart knows its own bitterness, and with its joy no one else can share" (14:10). There were probably many factors that led him to that final tragic decision.

We can mourn for him. Pray for his family and children. Take extra care of those around us who may be struggling with their own dark path. And remember how hard life on this earth can be at times.

The Bible does not hide or sugarcoat reality from us. In fact, it teaches us these three basic truths.

1. We are desperately broken. There is something wrong with our hearts. To some degree, we all battle insecurity, loneliness, discouragement, depression. Yes, we can cover over it, ignore it, stuff it, escape it, compensate for it…for a time…and maybe even for a whole lifetime. But the reality is still there. We battle thoughts and desires that threaten to overwhelm us. We struggle with relationships. We fight others. We fight ourselves. We want our own way. We pursue things that ultimately do not satisfy. We want a God who gives us what we want without interfering with our lives. Or we don't want a God at all.

2. We live in a desperately broken world. Something seems haywire. We long for life but find death all around us. We long for peace but find conflict and war. We want time to slow down but it seems to speed up and disappear like a vapor. Hatred. Violence. Oppression. Cancer. Viruses. Natural disasters. Senseless tragedy. Meaningless existence. Something inside of us tell us that things should be different…hopes that things will be different…but in the end death seems to have the final say.

3. We have a Savior who was desperately broken for us and for our world. To the world, it sounds trite. It even sounds like foolishness. But to the believer, it sounds like good news. It sounds like life. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst (1 Timothy 1:15). Jesus bore our sins on the cross to offer us forgiveness, cleansing, reconciliation, freedom from guilt, eternal life. And Jesus rose again from the dead to give us victory, confidence, joy, peace, and hope.

Hope. It is the ultimate antidote to depression and despair.

Hope that the darkness of this life will one day dawn with new light.

Hope that the death of this world will one day be defeated with new life.

Hope that in the sufferings and trials of this life there is still meaning and purpose.

Hope that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Hope that because of Christ we will one day truly live in Paradise.

Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! (Psalm 50:22-23)

God issues a stern rebuke and a warning of judgment to the person who forgets Him. And what is the evidence of forgetting God? Quite simply, it is a refusal to glorify Him through thanksgiving.

Notice what God says: "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me." Thus, the converse would also be true: "The one who refuses to offer thanksgiving as his sacrifice does not glorify Me."

Is it possible that the first step away from God is unthankfulness…and the first step back to Him is thankfulness?

Romans 1:21 would agree: For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Think about it for a moment. The first step away from God is unthankfulness.

I am created by God. I am dependent on Him. Everything I have in life is a gift of grace. Every breath is breathed in Him (Acts 17:28). I am owed nothing. I deserve nothing. Yet I refuse to acknowledge Him. I complain that He owes me more. I ignore Him. I run from Him. I go my own way as if I have control of my own life and destiny. 

Are we really that prideful? That ungrateful?

Shakespeare once said, "Worse than a serpent's bite is a thankless child." A loving parent knows this. To love and sacrifice for your children and then have them say, "What else are you going to do for me? I demand more," as if they are owed everything and appreciate nothing, frustrates, angers, and breaks a parent's heart.

How often are we the same way with God?

The first step back to God is to be thankful. 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

To stop and realize that life is a gift, that I am owed nothing, that because of my sin I only deserve death, that my life is not my own, that my very breath is in God's hands, that every good thing is from Him, is the beginning of true wisdom and life.

Such a realization humbles me and sets my life on the right course. Like the prodigal, I come home. And, according to Psalm 50:23, God shows me His salvation. 

I begin to see life through a new set of lenses…through the lenses of grace.

So take time today to count your blessings, to name them one by one, and tell someone else of the great things that God has done. 

This is thanksgiving. This is joy. And this glorifies God.

I don’t remember much about Easter as a kid. What I do remember isn’t very pleasant.

Hard pews. Long church services. Wearing some pastel-looking suit my mom bought for me.

Things were a little better after church when we usually had some kind of Easter egg hunt. The chocolate eggs weren’t too bad either. But that was about it.

To me, Easter seemed like another excuse for people to go to church…and a lesser complement to the celebration of Christmas. Coloring eggs is nice but nothing beats a boatload of gifts around a Christmas tree…at least if you are a kid.

Even after I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior at age 12, I don’t remember Easter meaning too much. I certainly grasped the idea of Jesus rising from the dead…but again it almost seemed like a lesser complement to the cross and Jesus dying for my sins.

I didn’t really “get” Easter.

Until 1996.

That was the year that my sister, Jill, died.

I will never forget her.

Olive skin. Beautiful green eyes. Gentle spirit. She was often my babysitter as a kid. I remember her making school assignments for me. Grading my “work.” Reading to me. Playing games. Teaching me songs. Painting my toenails. I try to forget that last part.

She had a brain aneurysm while still in high school (I think around 1978). I remember waking up to her screaming in the bathroom, yelling that her head hurt. I stood frozen outside the door while my parents tried to help her up…carrying her through the hallway, out the front door, to the car.

It was a Saturday morning. I stayed at home watching cartoons…hearing bits and pieces from my older brothers and sisters as they talked on the phone.

I was too young to fully fathom what was going on. No one really talked to me. I just sat and listened…and watched cartoons.

The next scene I remember was being gathered in a hospital conference room. The doctor gave her a 50% chance of living. She was in a coma. A tumor had caused a blood vessel in her brain to burst. There was no way of knowing what damage had already been done. I remember my mom saying with tears in her eyes and emotion in her voice, “Well, if you have never prayed, then now is the time to do it.”

I think a few people in our family struggled to verbalize a prayer. But we were sporadic church-goers. We didn’t know how to pray, particularly as a family. We didn’t even know the One we were trying to pray to.

The next few weeks and months, Jill slowly recovered. I made a few trips to the hospital but was always too young to see her. When I finally did, I was struck by her bald head and sunken cheeks. She had been through a battle and had barely survived.

But survive she did. And without a hint of brain damage. I witnessed a miracle and didn’t even know it.

The next years saw many life changes. Jill got married, had two boys. I graduated from high school, entered Bible college. Our family changed too. Jill’s brush with death seemed to sober us, wake us up. We became closer to one another. We became closer to God. First, my older brother trusted Christ, then my sisters, including Jill, then myself. We began to get to know the One whom we had tried to pray to in that hospital several years before.

Then, like an unwanted guest, the cancer in my sister’s brain came back.

She fought hard. Radiation. Remission. Surgery. Alternative medicine. Prayer. But the cancer did not relent. It kept coming back with more and more aggressiveness. She became weaker. Thinner. More tired. Less tied to this life.

I hated it.

I hated seeing my beautiful sister lose her hair, lose her color, lose her weight, lose her strength…and slowly lose her life.

I hated cancer.

I hated death.

My sister lost her battle with cancer on Wednesday, March 6, 1996. I heard the news literally 30 minutes before I was to teach my youth group in New Orleans on the hope of the resurrection. The lesson was all outlined, printed, and prepared. But now it had new meaning. I wept as I taught. Two of the youth gave their lives to Christ that night.

Four weeks later it was Easter Sunday. It was the first Easter that I truly celebrated…that I truly understood.

Jesus is alive. The grave could not hold Him.

Jesus conquered death. Its power has been broken.

And now I have hope.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:22-26)

Let’s be honest. If Jesus didn’t rise from dead, then we really don’t have any hope. Death is it. The dead are gone. We can sugar-coat it all we want. The reality is that this brief, cruel, meaningless, random life is all we have. Let’s eat, drink, and drown our misery with feigned happiness because tomorrow we die.

But if Jesus did rise from the dead…then He is God…and out of love He has entered our world…and He has borne our sin…cancelled our debt…died our death…and given us the assurance of a resurrected life.

Easter is not just a holiday. It is the only day that gives us a real reason to celebrate.

It is our only hope.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

My sister lost her battle with cancer on Wednesday, March 6, 1996.

But Jesus Christ won the battle with death on Easter Sunday, AD 33.

And because He won, my sister is alive. And I will see her again.

Without sin. Without pain. Without cancer. Without sorrow. Without death.

Do you believe this?

I do.

20 years. 

That is my best guess on the last time that I was in Birmingham. 

20 years. Wow. Where does the time go?

But here I am again. My sons are involved in a speech and debate tournament in Birmingham. I am at a church facility that I visited once probably 25 years ago. It doesn't really ring any bells in my mind. 

But I had some time today so I took a little trip down memory lane…or actually Hwy 280 and I-459. 

It is amazing how much things have changed…and how much some things look the same. As I travel down the road, the names of the exits start coming back to my mind. I see the Galleria mall. A Chick Fil-a that I used to visit frequently. An exit that I used to take to get to school. 

I went to school at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham. Small school. Very small school. All of 150 students when I was there.

I began college as a naive 18 year old. Unfamiliar with the world. Just starting to get a handle on theology, the Bible, culture, life. It was in Birmingham that I grew up. I learned to take care of myself…500 miles from home. How to manage money. How to relate to new people. How to get around to new places. How to separate colors and wash clothes. 

It was also at Southeastern that I met my wife. I fell in love with her almost the first time I saw her. I pursued her, then took her for granted and lost her, then rewon her heart. It was the classic off again, on again relationship that thankfully ended "on." 

So as I look back, Birmingham really set the trajectory of my life. If I would have went to a different college in a different city, then my whole life would have taken a different route. Different wife. Different ministries. Different churches. Different cities. Different homes. Different children. Different life.

Weird. 

As I went to the old campus where I graduated (the college has since moved locations), it was sort of surreal. The buildings were different but bore many of the same characteristics from the time I was there. Everything around the campus has changed. Houses have sprung up. Trees have been chopped down. Businesses have expanded. Traffic has increased. 

I stood there for a moment, reflecting, remembering. 

Nostalgia produces a strange mix of emotions. Wonder at the memories. Sadness at the passage of time. I wanted to return to those days, relive them, re-feel them. But they are gone. I can't recapture them. I can only remember. 

Memory is such an interesting phenomenon. What is a memory? It isn't anything that science can tangibly touch or explain. It exists in my mind, above my mind. It takes me back to a reality that is passed. Back to a person that I once was, but I am no longer.

Sometimes our memories are painful and we try to squeeze them out of our minds.

Sometimes they are pleasant and we try to squeeze as much out of them as possible. 

I did lots of squeezing as I left that old campus. There were synapses in my brain that starting firing off old memories that I had forgotten…but were still there…somewhere in my brain…or beyond it. My graduation ceremony. My times fellowshiping in the cafeteria. My debates with roommates. My job in the library. My fear during a tornado warning. My first kiss with my wife.

I even remembered a time when I sat wondering what life would be like 25 years down the road.

Where would life take me? Where would I end up? Who would I marry? What children would I have? Would I want the life that I had chosen? Would I even still be alive?

Many of those questions have been answered. I am further down the road. And God has been faithful. 

I remember David's words in Psalm 31:15, My times are in Your hand.

Past. Present. Future. God holds it all.

I remember the past. I strain to see the future. But I must live in the present. The eternal God chooses to meet us in the "now"…and to give us memories to remind us of His faithfulness in the past and to give us promises to instill hope in us as we face the future. 

I pull back onto the highway. 

I glance back in my rear view mirror but keep my eyes on the road ahead. 

And I give thanks that God's plan took me through Birmingham.