Hate them? How could I ever hate them? Yet by faith I had said in effect, I will do your will whatever it costs to me or them, and I will trust you.
Their plane crashed. Everyone on board was killed. But my wife had also had a premonition and cut their journey short, getting off the plane the stop before the tragedy occurred.
I am grateful for the way it worked out. But I didn’t know beforehand that things would go as they did. And had it not worked out that way, I would have grieved (God knows how I would have grieved), but I would not have regretted my decision to trust and to go forward … This is what it means to follow Christ fully. This is the effect he wants to have on all our personal relationships—family members, spouses, friends—whatever they may be. The fear that may hold you back is a fear of unbelief. But defy your fear and go forward. For to follow Christ fully means to take steps along the perilous pathway of trust, roped to the safest Guide in the universe.3
Mom told me he got it all mixed up. (Ever hear a married couple tell the same story?)
It is interesting to me how that same event impacted two people so powerfully. You see, there is even more to this tale. Other factors were involved. It was actually impossible for us to have been killed aboard that plane. Here’s why:
Besides becoming a real pain in the ass real quick, I was also the answer to a whole lot of prayer—the prayers of my mother and father. (I guarantee you they got a little more careful about what they asked for after having me.)
I knew nothing of any of this until my father told me when I was in my late twenties. I was in Cook County Jail in Chicago for stealing a six-and-a-half-foot Burmese python named Monty. Needless to say, I was stoned and drunk. To put it very mildly, it was during a terribly dark time in my life, and I’ll leave it at that. There are some things better left alone.
This was the first time I’d heard of what I now call “The Set-Up.” Is that a fair name? You be the judge …
It was in a holding cell in jail for a visit with my father that I first heard of it. That he was even there was in itself a miracle. How he got in to see me was so typical of him. Believe me, he was an amazing man. (Contact visits were strictly prohibited.)
Well, after the pleasantries were done he gently took my arm and said, “Kevin, there is something that I can tell you now.” Then he told me a story that shed some light onto the insanity of my life.
He said that after my brother Scott was born they couldn’t seem to have another child for almost five years. They had prayed often about it, first for a son, then asking why my mother couldn’t conceive. There seemed to be no real answers.
Late one night while they were on leave in Paris, taking some much-needed time away from their work at the leper colony, my father went for a walk in a nearby park. He told me he was troubled about them not being able to conceive. At a bench deep in the park he got to his knees and began to pray.
He asked God for a son—a good son, a child he could raise up in the knowledge of God, one who would love him with all his heart, strong and full of the Holy Spirit, who would serve and honour God—a child who would bring glory to his name.
Right at that point God very powerfully interrupted him with a question.
“To my glory or to your glory? What about Adam and me?”
This was immediately followed by a rapid and equally powerful series of visions and emotions that included stone prison walls, shame, bitter struggle, great pain, and all the sin, disgrace, and terrible heartache that may follow. He said it shook him powerfully.
God spoke once again. “I am going to bring this child into the world. I am offering him to you. If you do not want him, if you do not accept him, I will give him to another.”
Here is how he put it in his own words. It’s something that, once again, I stumbled upon while reading one of his books, The Pathway of Holiness: A Guide for Sinners. It was in the chapter on pride and its pitfalls.
God taught me this lesson during the long delay between our firstborn and subsequent children. My wife and I were older, and in a hurry. Disturbed by the delay, I knelt one day in a park in Paris, when there were few people around. I asked God for another son with the caveat “if he will live to your glory.”
Quite distinctly the Holy Spirit said, “To my glory, or to yours?”
I was shaken a little. Then came “What about me and Adam?”
At first perplexed, I began to realize that at the time of creation God had known of all the wars, the cruelty, the diseases, the terrible tragedies that would follow the entry of satanic pride into human history. Yet he had still given Adam life. Was he asking me to do something similar?
I asked, “What d’you mean?”
Immediately into my mind came a picture of the walls of a prison not far from the home of my childhood. I felt sick.
“You mean he would go to jail?” The possibility of having a son who would go to jail frightened me. I could feel moisture penetrating my trouser knees. But I did not rise. I knew I was being offered a son who would go to jail. I also knew I could refuse that son. Perhaps someone else would have him. I have no idea how a sovereign God works this sort of thing. But there was no answer to my feeling of panic, only silence.
Finally, rather shaken, I said, “OK. I’ll have him!”
Two months later our second son was conceived. By that time, I had forgotten the prayer “conversation.” My dialogue with God did not lead to a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I gradually forgot about it, and I recalled it only much later when the clear differences between Kevin and our other children became so obvious that they could no longer be ignored.
A nightmare began then. Did God cause my second son to sin? Obviously not. But he had known what would happen. And he had given me a choice.
Later came two prophecies, both from men with established reputations for accurate prophecy. A cloud of darkness rested on that particular son. At some date in the future it would be snatched from above his head, and he would change. In the meantime, Kevin never lost his longing for the things of God. In jail he would organize Bible studies. He would lay his hands on other prisoners, and these would occasionally fall to the ground, overwhelmed by the Spirit of God. How does one explain such things?4
For some strange reason, my father said yes. That he hadn’t the slightest idea what he was doing I have no doubt. If it were me, I would plead temporary insanity.
I’ve often puzzled on what he told me that day. In one sense, I was relieved that there was some sort of explanation for my insanity. Somehow, I had always known this was all part of a plan—that my life was being carefully guided and guarded for some reason, but I also was tempted at one point to become very angry—furious.
How dare you! Both of you! Who do you think you are?! Why did you even make me? So I could suffer hell over and over again? Here? And then when I’m dead too? WHY?! Why didn’t you just say “No”? I just so wished you’d have said “No! No! No!”
But he didn’t. He said, “Yes.” I understand now. You see, when my father said he trusted God, he really meant it. No matter what it cost. He may not have understood fully what his decision would mean. I think I do now.
Through that choice God revealed himself to both of us in a way that nothing else could have allowed him to. God revealed his incredible love and faithfulness to us both in ways neither of us could have experienced had we not gone through what we did, my father in his way and I in mine.
I would not trade the wonder of knowing him the way I do for anything. My father once told me that pain is the shovel God uses to dig us deep—that the