In seminary, I began wondering how I would shepherd people through deep valleys that come with the changing seasons of life. One of my seminary professors once told a story about a family that faced a terrible tragedy. I asked him, “How do you minister to someone in that situation?” He said, “If you never did anything in advance to prepare them, there is relatively little you can do at the time.”
So, as a pastor I want to prepare you for suffering. There is so much grace available in these thoughts from Matt Chandler and C.J. Mahaney:
T4G 2010 — Session 8 — C.J. Mahaney from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.
17 years ago, my mother had an urgent medical condition that almost caused her death. My brother (not a believer) and I were faced with the possibility of agreeing to passive euthanasia, due to her extreme condition. At the time, I was fairly unfamiliar with it and had no idea what was the biblical thing to do when a person’s vital organs were shutting down. I immediately picked up the phone in that Texas hotel lobby and called my dear friend, brother, and mentor in Michigan. He and I spoke for over an hour and he wept with me, prayed with me, and counseled me from Scripture on the possibilities of what may be best. Although I went away from that conversation in tears, I was fully grounded in what, for us, was the best thing to do given her condition. By God’s grace, we did not have to make that call since my mother showed positive signs of recovering a few hours later.
The point? I did not begin to think about calling my pastor when needing to talk because he’d not only not prepared me to suffer the possible loss of my mother, but had not prepared me to think deeply about life and death issues from a biblical view.
Teach them well, Pastor Brauns, and may your sheep dial your number!