A year ago today a friend of mine, Dan Witt, left this earth and went home to be with Jesus. I originally wrote this blog the day of his funeral to share something very important I learned from his example: the glory of God should be the ultimate focus of our lives and everything else pales in comparison. Anyone can say it but Dan actually lived it out. It's kind of ironic that the anniversary of his passing falls on Good Friday, the same day Jesus paid the ultimate penalty for our sins. Dan lived a life focused on His Savior and always kept the cross front and center. I will never be able to articulate how focused he was during his final months on earth. But my prayer is when God decides to bring me home that I will have lived my life with the same faith and hope that Dan showed us all.
Life, Death, and the Glory of God...
The Glory of God is a phrase that Christians have used for thousands
of years. But if you ask those who claim to be followers of Jesus what it means
you might be surprised by the variety of answers. Take it from someone who has
asked the question on numerous occasions and it’s clear that we really don’t
know. Just about the only thing Christians do agree on is that we need to
glorify God in all we do. So how is it that a phrase we use so frequently can
be so misunderstood? Before I go on you should know that I am definitely not an
expert on the topic but for the last six months this phrase and the
ramifications of it have been placed on my heart.
I almost hesitate sharing these two stories together as evidence of
the Glory of God because they are so different and they raise such different
emotions. But at the same time God has used them both in a mighty way to open
my eyes to what it means to bring Him Glory. This entire journey started back
on August 12, 2012. I was sitting in a church listening to a friend of mine,
Dan Witt, share the heartbreaking story of what was happening to him. Months
earlier he had been diagnosed with cancer and it was literally beating him
down. He sat up on stage that morning and recounted the details of the last
year of his life. I was hanging onto every word he said and trying to imagine
what it would be like to be in his shoes. As he spoke he did so like a man on a
mission and he said a lot of things that I will never forget. He talked about what
chemo was like and how the growing tumor in his stomach was taking its toll. He
talked about how frustrating it was to feel helpless and he told us one of his
greatest fears was not being there for his family. He talked about hospitals
and emergency rooms and all the tests that were being run to
monitor his health. He shared that at one point with the continuous flow of bad
news the discouragement began to set in and finally he asked God a simple
question, “When am I going to get a break?” It’s a valid question and I have no
doubt that I would have been asking God the very same thing. But what Dan said next
forever changed my understanding of perseverance in the face of suffering…
“God said what do you mean a break?
Look at what we’re doing here. Look at what I’ve done for you. Then I realized
God has opened so many doors for me to start glorifying Him through this
process. I’m blessed that He chose to give me cancer.”
I remember hearing those words and thinking at the time that
blessed isn’t exactly the terminology I would have used. Blessed is reserved
for good times and happiness not sickness and pain. On top of that glorifying
God through this process definitely sounded difficult and no matter how hard I
tried I couldn’t wrap my head around what he meant. Then he clarified by
saying…
“I know it sounds completely crazy.
But I have been able to talk to so many people and tell them how awesome Jesus
is and how awesome God is. It doesn’t matter what your life situation is He is
going to be there for you and walk beside you. You can trust Him.”
I sat there with a blank stare on my face and wondered if
the situation was reversed if I would be as strong and as focused on bringing
God glory as he was. I wasn’t sure of the answer and honestly I wasn’t sure I
wanted to know the answer either. So like I have so many times before I filed
away his impactful words and went on with my life. During the months that
followed Dan continued to fight his battle with cancer and continued to give
God glory for everything that was happening. My wife and I prayed for him often and began to focus our lives on what God was laying on our hearts, adoption.
My wife and I have been talking about our desire to adopt ever
since our very first date. Obviously at that point we didn’t have a clue we
would be adopting as husband and wife but God implanted a desire in each of us to
be involved in the things that are closest to His heart. It’s embarrassing to
admit but one of the biggest hindrances for us (and by us I mean me) in
following through with adoption has always been the cost of the entire process.
For those of you who don’t know adoptions involving newborns generally run
around $20,000. Being the good steward that I am (I use that term loosely
because steward can often mean a Christian license to hoard) I couldn’t imagine
a scenario where we would have $20,000 just sitting in our bank account. We
have debt to pay off, houses to move into, cars to buy, vacations to go on, and
a long list of other American necessities. But God had other plans and as He
usually does He let my wife know first (or quite possibly she obeyed first). So
in August of this past year, a week after Dan shared his testimony, my wife
approached me and said she really felt the Lord moving in her heart for us to
begin the process. I listened as she shared and assured her I would spend some
time in prayer because I wanted to make sure we were both hearing the same
thing.
So I prayed (every so often) and tried to justify in my mind
why it wasn’t the right time to adopt. Interestingly, God doesn’t like it when
we have a halfhearted commitment to the things He has called us to do and He will
often work in our lives to expose our hypocrisy. So in January of 2013, He
decided to expose my heart very clearly through Matthew 18. My wife and I both
teach college age bible studies and we were teaching through what it meant to
have childlike faith.
Matthew 18:1-4 At that
time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom
of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and
said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
I remember standing in front of the students and asking them
if they had any areas in their life where they were not exhibiting childlike
faith. Areas where they were neglecting to turn, as verse three says, and
become like children who place their complete trust and dependence on God. Even
as the words were coming out of my mouth I knew where I was lacking that same
faith and trust in God’s direction. So I confessed to the group and spent a few
minutes sharing with them our desire to adopt. I also asked them to pray for me
in the area of trusting in God’s provision and timing. They prayed, I trusted
and later that week we decided to move forward with the two to three year
process of adoption.
We spent the rest of January exploring our options and on
February 4th committed to an agency here in Tampa, FL. As you can
imagine February was a busy month filled with lots of paperwork, background
checks, home studies, interviews and all the other fun things that go along
with adoption. We finished everything up the first week of March and then moved
on with our lives. Much to our surprise (or lack of faith) two days later on
March 5 we got a call from the agency telling us that we had been selected by a
couple that was having a child. The mother’s due date was in less than a month
and the parents wanted to meet with us to confirm their decision. I remember
hanging up the phone in shock and just staring at Courtney as we both tried to
let the good news sink in.
Good news has this amazing ability to overshadow everything
else in your life. Unfortunately, bad news almost always does the exact same
thing. As my wife and I spent March contemplating our future and the exciting
addition to our family Dan and his family received word that his health was
declining and the doctors were at the point where there was nothing else they
could do. They sent him home and gave him just a few weeks to live. I can’t imagine
the emotions that must be involved in getting that type of news. But as he has done
every step of the way Dan stayed strong and attributed everything that happened
to ultimately being part of God’s plan.
The month of March was obviously very different for us then
it was for Dan and his family. For us it was a blur of last minute paperwork
and finalizing the preparations to our house for God’s little blessing. We met
with the biological parents and were able to spend some time getting to know
them. They were both nice caring individuals who thought long and hard about
their decision to choose adoption for their son. The days passed and on Saturday,
March 30, 2013, my wife and I stood in a hospital room with our unborn child’s
birth parents. They were gracious enough to let us be in the room when he was
born and even gave me the opportunity to cut his umbilical cord. Minutes later
as we held him for the first time we couldn’t help but be in awe of God’s graciousness
and His provision in our lives. Even the next day as we came to pick up our son
we couldn’t help but thank God that his adoption into our family was happening
on Easter Sunday. What a great reminder of the day that Christians are
officially adopted as heirs into the kingdom of God with Christ’s death on the
cross. We could do nothing but praise His name for who He is and how He works
in the lives of those who follow Him.
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| Courtney & Jadyn |
As I write this blog our son Jadyn is three and a half weeks old.
Minus a little bout with pneumonia he is perfectly healthy and doing his job of
keeping us up at night. It is amazing the opportunities we have had to tell
people about the adoption and how quickly everything transpired. Everyone is amazed
and we literally can say nothing except God has a plan and He is always at work
in the lives of those who trust Him. I have been reminded many times over the
last few weeks of what Dan said as he shared his story “it doesn’t matter what
your life situation is He is going to be there for you and walk beside you. You
can trust Him.” Dan’s words seem to make so much sense when times are good and
yet so difficult to understand when times are tough.
It’s easy to thank God and give Him glory
during the good times. It would be senseless for my wife and I to think we had
anything to do with the speed and ease of our adoption. People spend years
trying to adopt and our process from beginning to end didn’t even take three
months. That literally can’t be explained any other way except to say that God
is awesome and for that we praise His Name. On the flip side Dan did something
that was far more difficult by giving praise to God and giving Him glory in the
midst of suffering.
So how can God use two events, life and death,
which are so contradictory in their very nature to bring glory to His Name? Even
though it has taken me almost a year to truly understand I think I'm finally starting to get it. God's
goal from the beginning of time has been to display His glory and bring honor
and praise to His Great Name. The phrase God's glory points to all of His divine attributes (His wisdom, holiness, knowledge, love, mercy, righteousness,
perfection, beauty, goodness, etc) working together in harmony and on display in one
infinitely perfect being. All of these things represent how awesome God is and as believers in Christ even though these attributes
are hard for us to understand our goal is to reflect His glory for
the world to see. We do this in many different ways such as speaking of His goodness to us and His faithfulness in our lives. We share of His love
for us and the comfort and peace He offers when times are tough. We speak of the mercy He has on us even though we are sinners and undeserving. When you think about it our lives are filled with peaks and valleys but the honor and praise we give our Savior should always remain the same. As we strive to reflect His glory to those around us He too is working among His people to
display His glory. Sometimes that may come in the form of suffering and
sometimes that may come in the form of triumph. How we react to these circumstances tells
the world that we love His glory more
than life itself.
So how is this possible? It’s possible when we understand
that our focus is not on this life but on the future glory prepared for us in heaven.
The Apostle Paul explains it perfectly to the church at Rome.
Romans 8:18 - For I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is
to be revealed to us.
No matter the situation we find peace in
whatever God has in store for our lives and we praise Him every step of the way. John Piper says
that our duty is to bring our thoughts, affections, and actions in line with
this goal and ultimately it should become our goal. The way we glorify God is to delight in His
glory more than in anything else and be grateful for it. Psalm 73 does an amazing job of explaining this mindset that Dan exemplified so well.
Psalm 73:25-26 - Whom have I
in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My
flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever.
On April 18, 2013, at the age of 34 years old, Daniel Witt lost his fight with cancer. Thankfully on that same day he gained entrance into the most glorious place imaginable. As I look back it's weird to think that a man I knew for such a short amount of time could change my perspective on life in such a dramatic way. But I guess that's how God works. Constantly placing people in our lives to redirect our focus to Him.
Today at 12
o’clock we honored Dan and the life he lived on earth. It was evident to all who
attended that his hope, his peace and his joy were found in Christ. He lived and died
knowing that God had a plan and even though he might not fully understand what
it was he would be faithful to it until the very end. I'm thankful for his
testimony and I pray that his unwavering faith will point all who knew him to the God
of the universe and they too will glorify His name.
1
Corinthians 10:31 - So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to
the glory of God.
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| Daniel Witt |
This is a video that was played at Dan's funeral and
it has some great audio clips of his testimony.
