liberti

Sickness & Sabbath

June 01 07 slutz 1 comment

This is a post from Jess and Steve Lutz

Update on Jess’s health (from Jess)

Thanks to all those who have helped us with meals & childcare the last few months. We’ve been through an extraordinary season of being loved on by many different people.
Many of you have cooked things you had never heard of before out of love for us. We give glory to God that His love has been poured out through the care team and many others in our church body! All of this help has provided desperately needed rest. What a gift! I am feeling a lot better than a few months ago, but still have a long way to go. We are so thankful for your prayers and for this sabbatical.

H4. A few months ago…

Steve shared in a sermon about my spine straightening in response to some prayer. We finally got an X-Ray to verify it, and, sure enough, it had straightened 10 degrees, from 35 to 25! This is remarkable. We’ve looked around, and you just don’t find reports of this in the medical literature without major bracing or surgical intervention. Crooked spines don’t just straighten as you get older! This is a God thing and we want to give him the credit he deserves!

What God’s Been Teaching Me.

After 10 ½ years of chronic illness, God is still teaching me so much about myself and about Him.
Despite my best efforts to manage my health, children, and household, my health went in to the toilet these past few months. I found myself returning to a place of pain, weakness, and need, a place lower than I had been in about 6 years. I could not keep up with the needs of my two young kids. I couldn’t do the cleaning or cooking or shopping for my own family. I couldn’t even drive, or carry the baby up the stairs. In that place of needing other people to constantly come in and do all the things that “I should be doing,” the Lord revealed more of the depths of my heart.

I was restless to have something to show for myself.

I saw my deep need to contribute something to God, to my worth, to my healing, and to God’s daily acceptance of me. God stripped me of my ability to perform. There was nothing I could do to contribute or feel better about myself. In my eyes, this felt like failure and shame, but this was exactly where God wanted me to be. And in that place, the Lord showed me that I was ok. I had none of what I thought I needed, but everything I really needed and more. I found that it is joy, freedom, and rest to come to God totally empty and unworthy. It is joy to realize in real experience that my Father’s love, forgiveness, salvation, life, and healing are absolutely free and limitless and unchanging. It’s all free simply because He is that Good and Holy and Full of Grace! It’s all free simply because Jesus’ righteousness and payment were enough—forever and ever. What a beautiful, wonderful, truth that it is not about our own goodness, and never will be!

Early in this trial season, the Lord comforted me with Hebrews 12:1-13, particularly speaking to me in v. 3-4: 3Consider him [Jesus] who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

The Lord encouraged me with two important truths about how He wants us to view hardship.

1. Hardship is my Father’s loving discipline to help me become like Jesus.
2. The hardships we willingly entrust to God are a sharing in Christ’s sufferings.

In my journal from a couple months ago, I wrestled with this. “Lord, I hear you testifying to me that I am sharing in Christ’s struggle against sin and brokenness! Your purpose in my suffering is to battle sin and evil. Am I willing to accept your purpose in me? Lord, I heard you say to me, ‘In your struggle with sickness and brokenness, I am not asking nearly as much as I asked my own Son to do for you. I am not asking much, am I?’ Lord, you are not asking much of me, if you ask me to share just a little bit of Jesus’ sufferings to bring about your purposes. You are asking me to share just a little bit of His pain and disgrace. How can I argue with you? How can I refuse the One who has loved me so much? How can I refuse the One whose heart is full of love to me? How can I refuse the One who wants to use me for your good purposes of victory over sin and evil and glory in us and in you? How can I refuse you if you want to put to death my idols of self-reliance, self-righteousness, comfort and control – the sins that eat away at my soul? I will gladly walk with you in this, Jesus. I know now more than ever that you do walk with me and you have already overcome all of this. I will gladly endure, by your grace, needing your help every day, so that you can bless your people and build your church and deepen faith and conquer sin and display your power and mercy. You are worthy of it, Lord, and your love is enough.”

This heavenly perspective has been incredibly helpful in my ability to endure, and to not lose faith in the process. Thank you again for those who have prayed for us in that way!

Sabbatical

I (Steve) am extremely grateful to liberti’s elders for giving this summer’s sabbatical to me. This was scheduled before our health crisis, but it comes at a good time for us as a family.

Not that I’m expecting it to be easy.

Many busy pastors have a hard time getting used to sabbatical (just ask Geoff & Steve), because it is 3 months of resting in Jesus. There’s a huge difference. I’m going to have to put down my usual efforts at finding worth, value, and meaning (in my work), and see what happens between Jesus and I in the stillness. I’m going to find out a lot about my own heart. The extent to which I am really willing to put down my work will demonstrate the extent to which I really trust God to keep working without my contribution.
The resting of a sabbatical, in which I can do nothing but receive grace, is a picture of the Gospel, and will therefore be difficult for the activist in me.

So would you consider praying for our sabbatical?

• That I would rest in Jesus, not take a vacation from Jesus.
• That I would not find replacements for my work.
• That I would grow in reliance on Jesus for all that we need, including Jess’s health.
• That Jesus and I would become better acquainted. We’ve had some hurried conversations lately and need some quality time.
• That I would grow in some key areas of becoming like Jesus, that He and some other loved ones have identified in my life.