Ep.330: Cancer, Chemo, COVID, and Wildfires.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

The effects of my chemotherapy were just wearing off when I got . . . COVID.

Chemo and COVID, not exactly a marriage made in heaven. One evening when my COVID fever crept beyond 39 degrees Celsius, I checked myself into Emergency. They poked and prodded and took statements and extracted blood. Finally, they sent me home at 2:00 a.m. saying, “Come back if your breathing gets difficult and painful.”

After a restless sleep, I phoned the COVID hotline. A doctor prescribed the new COVID drug Paxlovid. Pills morning, pills evening, fatigue all the time! Oil-sludgy tasting tongue. Tingling feet. It was like chemo all over again. But only for five days. Small mercies?

Paxlovid didn’t kill or heal my COVID, it just slowed it down while my body built immunity. When I finished my pills, I got a COVID hacking cough and runny nose. My taste buds quit working, an improvement on the sludge, but not an outcome that made me happy.

A week later my home test kit declared me COVID-free. My taste buds and sense of smell started to recover—just in time to experience the smoke-filled air of Alberta wildfire season. A record 23 out-of-control wildfires burned thousands of square kilometers, creating 20,000 refugees.

Edmonton air quality, normally one or two on a scale of ten, jumped beyond ten. My winter of sickness progressed into a spring of smoke-filled air.

Let’s pray.

Our father, my tomato seeds grew stems with smooth, generic leaves, and then replaced them with pointy tomato leaves.

My life is at the generic stage. In the dark soil of cancer and chemo and COVID, bits of your word germinated and grew timidly into the smokey air of my life. My garden has produced weak stems and immature leaves.

What plants are you growing here, as you dirty your hands in the soil of my life? Are you breathing my smokey air and tending the tender plants?

Paul said, in all things for the good of those who love you. May my heart respond to your love. May my life mature in your care. Bring your seedlings to a rich harvest.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.329: Chemo, Part 2.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

My first round of chemo for colon cancer landed me in the hospital with a broken digestive system. Two weeks later and twenty pounds lighter, they sent me home. My digestion wasn’t back to normal, but it was usable.

My oncologist summoned me back to the cancer clinic to discuss resuming chemo.

I said, “I don’t want to repeat that experience.”

He said, “We don’t want you to repeat it either.”

So we agreed on a second round of chemo at a 60% dose, starting after Christmas.

On December 28, they gave me a two-hour intravenous drip of chemo meds, and sent me home with two weeks of chemo pills. Happy New Year, Daniel!

I resumed my familiar routine: Omelet and pills in the morning, chemo pills for dessert after dinner. After two weeks, my digestion was out of order again, so I prescribed my own solution: an easy-to-digest, mostly liquid diet, while my body tried to flush out chemo meds.

My wife added popsicles to my recovery diet. Omelet for breakfast, popsicles for lunch, canned peaches with yogurt for dinner. The Michelin restaurant reviewers did not drop by to review my culinary adventures.

The cancer clinic sampled my blood for a third round of chemo, and sent me home because my white blood cell count was low. The next week, my cells achieved the minimum passing grade. Yay . . .

This time, they added a growth hormone to the mix, and prescribed a syringe to self-inject it on my third day of chemo pills.

The doctor said, “This encourages your bone marrow to produce more white cells. You might get growing pains–achy bones and muscles–like when you were growing up.”

I have always wanted to grow up, but injecting myself with growth hormones didn’t make it happen. Instead, it made me ache all over. Miserable and fatigued, I spent a weekend sleeping unhappily on the couch.

When round three ended, I restocked my popsicles for another round of digestive recovery. The good news was, my bone marrow responded to the popsicles and growth hormones, creating enough white cells to start round four of chemo on schedule. One last infusion of intravenous meds. Two final weeks of chemo breakfasts and desserts. One last self-injected syringe of growth hormones.

On March 1, I finished chemo. At last my body would have an opportunity to eliminate the poisons that persisted and the meds that lingered. Was the end in sight for abnormally dry hands, tingling feet, treacherous digestion, and endless fatigue?

Now, nearing the end of April, I eat almost normally. My hands and feet have improved. I still fatigue easily. And I am re-integrating into society.

My first Sunday back at church I said to my friends, “The doctor cleared me to re-enter civilized society.”

Let’s pray.

Our father, my chemo companions were the Bible and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and our dog, Wall-E. The dog shared my long cold chemo winter. The Bible promised that endurance produces character. Dostoevsky held out hope that even the worst of us can find new life.

Thank you that I have finished chemo. Thank you for the family that supported me and the church that prayed for me and the Christ who lives in me and the Easter story that shifs my focus from death to life.

O father, clear out the poisons in my life. The remnants of chemo meds and the sin that so easily entangles me (Heb 12:3).

As Paul said, “Let us celebrate the resurrection, not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5:8).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.328: Chemotherapy.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Eight weeks after my cancer surgery, the Cross Cancer Institute inEdmonton extracted blood to determine if I’d survive chemo. “You’re good to go,” said the doctor as he cleared me for intravenous medicine and chemo pills.

On the first snowy Wednesday of winter, nurses sat me in a recliner, draped me with a warm blanket, and started my two-hour drip of chemo meds.

The nurse said, “We’re the lucky ones. We have a fourth-floor view out the window!”

I said, “Can you turn my chair so I can enjoy it?”

Couldn’t be done. The view I got was busy nurses completing forms and hooking patients to IV’s. Blood, paperwork, chemicals. That’s life in Chemo City! I fed my brain with Dostoevky’s Crime and Punishment while the IV meds attacked the evil inside me.

Then they sent me home with two weeks of chemo pills. Four pills morning, four evening. Take them with food because they’re hard on the stomach.

The oxalyplatin from the IV lingered in my body and made me cold-sensitive. At night I wore socks to bed. In the morning I needed gloves to get an egg from the fridge for my morning omelet. Two weeks of eggs and chemo pills for breakfast, two weeks of chemo-pill dessert after dinner. I hated those pills. They coated my taste buds with motor-oil sludge, they threw off my digestion, made my hands and feet desert dry, and I always felt wasted.

As Lamentations says,
I remember my affliction. . .
the bitterness and the gall (3:19).

It also says,
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed.
His mercies are new every morning (3:23).

I thanked God for small mercies under the merciless regime of chemo. I thanked God for the gift of sleep on cold winter nights. For warm naps on cold winter afternoons. For the daily omelet. For the courage to follow it with the hated pills. And I was most thankful for the promise of a week-long break after two weeks of meds.

I finished the round of pills on a Wednesday and started my week off. But my digestion had other plans. The pills left me unable to eat, and barely able to drink. I toughed it out, miserable and dehydrated, until Saturday, waiting for things to improve.

They didn’t. So my family took me to emergency, where I was put on IV to rehydrate, and kept for two nights until a hospital bed was available, in a room with a man who had spent 40 unhappy days in the hospital after a stroke.

They gave me a clear liquid diet, of which the mainstay was jello. Red jello. Yellow jello. Green jello. Like stop lights. I just wanted it to stop! I tried, but I just can’t handle that much jello. Chicken broth and beef broth were better, thank you! Orange juice in the morning, cranberry juice at noon, apple juice at dinner. My wife supplemented the hospital fare with homemade broths and juices.

After a week they declared I could eat regular food and they sent me home. I celebrated with a package of Japanese noodle soup, which proved my digestion had not recovered after all. An ambulance collected me, burping green bile, for a midnight ride back to the hospital.

They didn’t know what was blocking my plumbing and backing up the bile. A CT scan showed nothing. So they put me back on a liquid diet, this time in an isolation room with a view of Sister Mary Ann Casey Park. In the coldest week of November, I watched the winter sun rise every day through fog and smog. It was beautiful.

Somehow, the winter sun warmed my soul. I found gladness in the sunrises, joy in the wintery landscape, hopefulness in the care of friendly nurses, patience with the everlasting hunger, grace in a podcast of morning prayers, love in the care of my family.

Let’s pray.

Our father, I spent two weeks in the hospital. So did you. You were with me, my family cared for me, my church and friends prayed and visited.

Who understands these gifts of your grace?

O father, surprise me again today with the grace I need. May the sunrises of spring light my darkness. May patient endurance lead me to new hope and better character. I say with Paul, “I rejoice in my trials, because trials produce endurance; endurance produces character; character produces hope. And hope does not make ashamed because the love of God is poured out in our hearts” (Rom 5:3-5).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.327: Cancer from the Inside Out.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

On July 26 last year, waking up after a routine colonoscopy, I was surprised to see the doctor and my wife at my bedside.

“We found a lesion on your colon, so I took a biopsy,” the doctor said.

“A lesion?” I replied. “I have a high-stress personality, so it’s probably just an ulcer. No real surprise there. Will I have to give up spicy foods?”

Dr. Switzer replied, “The biopsy will tell us.”

On the way home I said to Pearl, “I like that she didn’t use the word ‘cancer’. I doubt the lesion is really serious.”

Pearl, who reads people, said, “Wrong. Her manner shows she is treating this very seriously.”

Guess who was right? The biopsy showed Invasive Adenocarcinoma. Carcinoma. That’s cancer. I had colon cancer.

When my younger brother got colon cancer in 2014, he had surgery and chemotherapy, but he died in nine months. I started counting months. Nine fingers took me to April 2023. I hoped for a different journey than my brother.

In month 2 of my journey, on a sunny September day, my wife left me at the Grey Nuns Hospital. I had lived 68 years without seeing a surgeon’s knife, but my lucky streak was over. Stripped and gowned, my glasses and hearing aids in a hospital bag, I waited for my summons to surgery.

The porter tucked me into a mobile hospital bed, wheeled me into a huge operating theater and transferred me to an operating table with large overhead lights. The surgeon introduced me to the anesthesiologist who mainlined anesthetic into my veins. I slept through the removal of a third of my colon, with associated blood vessels and lymph nodes.

I spent three days and nights in the hospital, in a pea-soup fog of pain and medication and fatigue.

The doctor told me to get mobile, so I escorted my intravenous pole up and down the hospital corridors. That IV pole was a poor substitute for the dog I prefer walking.

Despite my fog and pain, the doctor declared I was adjusting well to my new life with surgery scars and a shorter colon. He sent me home on day three.

I felt like Lazarus walking out of his tomb into the spring sunshine where his sisters, friends, and Jesus welcomed him.

Meanwhile, the surgeon had preserved my spare parts in a formalin solution and sent them off for study. The pathology report said two of my 25 lymph nodes tested positive for cancer. “We call that stage 3,” the doctor said. “The cancer has spread, but two affected lymph nodes are better than 15 or 20! The next step is chemotherapy. We don’t know where the cells have roamed, and we don’t have tools to track them, so we send in drugs to ferret them out.”

The good news was: my cancer was diagnosed at an earlier stage than my brother’s. I retired my nine-finger counting obsession, and braced for chemo, scheduled six weeks after surgery.

I had a fine sunny fall in the reprieve between surgery and chemo. I walked the dog in the bright sunshine, contemplating the goodness of life and healthcare and family. I dreaded the impending start of chemo.

Let’s pray.

Dear Jesus, Mary and Martha said to you, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” They trusted your healing skills, but resurrection was beyond their vision.

I don’t know why you permit sickness. I don’t know why it sometimes leads to death, and sometimes is a valley that opens to new life.

But I thank you for doctors, for medicine, for healing by natural and surgical and chemical and spiritual means.

Thank you for living in us, for sharing our brief and fragile lives, for telling us about hope and healing and death and resurrection.

Be our companion in glad times and sad, through sunny days and nightmare nights. Teach us to trust you today and as we face the death that will soon come.

Our times are in your hands (Ps 31:15).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.326: Prison Prayers.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Ephesians 6 Paul calls himself an ambassador for the gospel. To which capital city was he posted? And what residence did they provide? This ambassador was posted to Rome, and his residence was a prison.

As a prisoner wrote to the Ephesians, “Pray for me. . .that I may fearlessly make known the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains” (Eph 6:19-20).

I have wondered about Paul’s wisdom making the journey that landed him in jail. In every city he visited, the Holy Spirit warned him that’s exactly what would happen. Listen, and marvel, at his attitude: “My life is worth nothing to me; my aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. . .” (Acts 20:24). Paul’s life was worth nothing to him? What is your life worth to you?

Paul heading obstinately for Jerusalem echoes Jesus who said, “I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!” (Luke 13:34).

What’s with these prophets, drawn irresistibly to Jerusalem to flirt with death and imprisonment?

Paul’s stay in Jerusalem was eventful. The Jews accused him of temple sacrilege. When they tried to kill him, the Romans threw him in prison and spirited him away to Caesarea. Felix, the Roman governor of Caesarea, wanting to placate the Jews, kept Paul in prison for two years (Acts 24:27).

Festus, who succeeded Felix, ordered a new trial for Paul, during which Paul appealed to Caesar. Festus’ friend King Agrippa, after reviewing the evidence against Paul, said, “This man could have been set free if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar” (Acts 26:32). So they sent Paul to Rome where he preached the gospel as a Roman prisoner under house arrest.

Was it wise of Paul to go to Jerusalem despite the warnings? Was it helpful to accept Roman protection and appeal to Caesar? A modern life coach would probably have told Paul to set reasonable goals for his life and ministry. Perhaps Paul could have lived a quiet suburban life writing his memoirs.

Let’s pray.

Our father, few of us manage our lives the way life coaches recommend. And we who have tried the management advice soon descend into mismanagement and chaos.

Scripture teaches that the cross was essential to Christ’s journey, and that you, God, were Paul’s companion on the long road to Jerusalem and Rome.

Take these wandering lives of ours. Give them meaning by the light of the gospel and the grace of your spirit. Be our life coach. Be our wisdom and righteousness (1 Cor 1:30).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.325: Battle Dress.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Ephesians 6 says, “Put on the full armor of God.” Reminds me of the Sunday school song,
I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery,
But I’m in the Lord’s army.

The battle dress Paul recommends is like a SWAT team uniform as they prepare to storm a drug dealer’s urban fortress. Paul lists six pieces of armor: shoes, belt, vest, shield, helmet, and sword.

Here’s Paul’s description of these pieces.

The armored boots of peace. Really? Do peaceful boots storm the house, break the door and shoot up the interior?

The bullet-proof vest of . . . righteousness. A SWAT team wearing a righteous vest?

The belt of truth. I hope the SWAT team has true intel about the drug house, but I want their belt to hold up their trousers, not provide insight into truth.

A ballistic shield and a bullet proof helmet. Not accessories I would link to faith or salvation.

And finally, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Swords are outdated, so our SWAT team uses assault rifles, tear gas, and tasers.

Why does Paul use this vision of violence to outfit his Christian soldier? I have two observations. And a warning.

Paul’s world was violent. He says, “Five times I was whipped, three times beaten with rods, once pelted with stones, and another time, shipwrecked” (2 Cor 11:24).

Paul doesn’t blame the devil and his army for the violence, but he does say, “Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies” (Eph 6:11-12). The source of violence was not simply the Roman soldiers who imprisoned Paul and the Jewish elders who had him flogged. There is a larger picture of evil that includes an unseen hierarchy of invisible evil forces.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force” (Mat 11:12). Paul and Jesus both used metaphors of violence to describe the Christian’s place in a violent world.

A second observation is that Paul’s instruction is not for us to form Christian SWAT teams and invade heavenly territories held by evil forces. Instead, he tells us to stand firm. Our armor, including the sword or assault rifle, does not prepare us for a conquest of enemy territory. It enables us to stand firm in the faith.

Which leads to a warning. Some teachers and pray-ers try to map out the geography of darkness, name the hierarchies of evil and fight them. While this fits our SWAT team analogy, it goes beyond Paul’s instructions to stand firm in our armor.

Let’s pray.

Our father, today we put on the belt of truth. May it expose the lies of the liberal left and the conservative right, the lies of governments and industry, the lies of conspiracy theories, and the lies of the devil.

Expose the falsehoods we hold dear because they help us simplify and cope with a complex world, a complex civilization, and our own complex emotional makeup.

Many things we do not understand. But we trust you Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Be our truth. Be our way. Be our life.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.324: Slavery.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Ephesians 6, Paul says, “Slaves, obey your masters with respect and fear and sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” And to masters he says, “Treat your slaves well, because their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” (Eph 6:5,9).

I make four comments on the Bible and slavery.

First, Old Testament Hebrew slavery, New Testament Roman slavery, and American civil war slavery, each treated slaves in different ways, some better, some worse. Hebrew and Roman slaves had more rights than African slaves in America, but they too were subject to abuse.

Second, John Murray, in his book on Christian ethics, says the Bible teaches that a slave’s labor belongs to his master, but the slave’s person belongs to God. The master forgets this at his peril. Paul warns the master, “You are a slave to God; treat your slaves the way God treats you” (Eph 5:19).

Third, I was a wage slave at Alberta Motor Association for a quarter century or so. For a third of each day, my time and labor belonged to AMA and I lived under the corporate threat that said, “You’re dispensable. Get along with people, be productive, and don’t complain, or we’ll fire you.” Sometimes when I was implementing bad decisions made by my masters, I was comforted by Paul’s words to slaves, “Work with your whole heart as working for the Lord. . . .For it is the Lord Christ you serve” (Col 3:24).

Not mine to question why. Mine to serve wholeheartedly, and trust the outcome to my master Christ. And yet, I wish I had spoken up more about bad decisions. There was, and is, room for reason and discussion.

Fourth, the story of God freeing Hebrew slaves from Egypt and guiding them to the Promised Land informs much of the Old and New Testaments. It is a grand vision of an oppressed and enslaved people on a journey through desert and hunger and thirst and war to find a new place to live and new way to be.

That’s us. Paul tells us we’re slaves to sin. And if we have courage to face the desert and the dryness and the warfare of a journey, God will bring us to a new place to live and a new way to be.

Let’s pray.

Our father, the prophet Micah painted a picture of peace and justice, saying:

Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid. . . (Micah 4:4)

Bring quickly that time when justice will rule the earth, when no one will threaten the poor with war and famine and theft, when assault rifles will supply steel for garden shovels, and tanks will be used as tractors.

Meanwhile, teach us to be cheerful in our daily duties, as we serve others, and in them serve you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.323: Submit.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Ephesians 5 Paul says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as the church submits to Christ” (Eph 5:22-24). To husbands he says, “Love your wives as Christ loves the church” (Eph 5:25).

I read this passage at the wedding of a theologically liberal friend. On a lovely sunny summer day, in a yard that backed onto a golf course, I read to a modern crowd “Wives, submit to your husbands”. I was shocked at how out of place it sounded in that context.

The preacher who followed me said, “Of course in our culture we don’t model marriages the way Paul describes.”

Recently, when my wife and I encountered this passage, she said, “We haven’t done very well following that model.”

So what to do with Paul’s statement about wives submitting?

In his book On Marriage, Tim Keller, with his unusual skill for taking the sting out of a difficult word like “submit”, presents a conservative position that makes Paul sound almost reasonable.

He points out that American independence was not just a tea party to throw off the yoke of British taxes and move into a space of unrestricted freedom. Rather, it was an agreement to submit to a new constitution and a new array of laws. And Americans are still arguing about what that constitution means, and how to submit to it.

Marriage is similar. Entering into a common law or legal marriage means surrendering some personal freedoms to make way for shared concerns. It just might matter to your partner if you are out all night without explanation, or if you skip the birthday planned they planned for you.

And like the American lawyers who argue about the constitution, Christians who subscribe to the “submit” model argue over its meaning and application. Should a partner submit to abuse, alcoholism, or adultery? Or just to reasonable requests? And who defines reasonable?

Once when I told a friend about a difficult situation in my marriage, he asked why I didn’t just point my wife to the submit verse. I replied, “Because she would point me to the verse that says I’m supposed to love her as Christ loves the church. I don’t think I’d survive long in that comparison.”

Let’s pray.

Our father, Bob Dylan said, “You gotta serve somebody.” But we want to think about freedom, not service and submission.

Teach us to give up our self-serving ways. Help our marriages to be companionable and friendly. Help us lead ordered lives, in service to each other and the church.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.322: Full of the Spirit.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “Don’t get drunk on wine. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). I’ve never found a satisfactory explanation of what it means to “be filled with the Spirit”, but in this passage, Paul gives a couple hints.

His first hint contrasts spirit-fullness with drunkenness.

In Shakespeare’s play MacBeth, McDuff wakes a sleeping porter late in the morning. The porter says he’s tired because he caroused and drank until the rooster crowed. Drink, he said, provokes nose-painting, urine, and lechery. “Lechery it provokes and unprovokes,” he says. “It provokes the desire but takes away the performance” (MacBeth, Act 2 Scene 1).

I’m not competent to comment on the porter’s view of alcohol and sex, but parts of it line up with Paul’s view that drunkenness leads to debauchery. Clearly, Paul doesn’t condone carousing until the rooster crows. He suggests a lifestyle of being filled with the Spirit.

Paul’s contrast between spirit-fullness and drunkenness, contains a second hint, because it’s not just a contrast, it’s also a comparison. To be drunk is to be “full of wine” in a way that influences attitudes and behavior. Being full of the Spirit also influences behavior. It prompts music in your heart, music in community, and constant thanksgiving to God. As Paul puts it, “Be filled with the Spirit and speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spirit-songs. Make music from your heart to God. Always give thanks to God” (Eph 5:19-20).

But what about the vexing question of how to be filled with the Spirit? Some groups say it occurs when you are born again. Others say it happens when you first speak in tongues. Others suggest it occurs when you submit fully to Jesus as Lord of your life.

As for me, I don’t see much of a connection between such experiences and the positive habits of heart-music and thanksgiving Paul proposes. I see spirit-fullness as a lifelong journey. As I empty myself of wine and greed and lechery, I make room for the Spirit, who fills me with himself.

Let’s pray.

Our father, I like music in my heart and music in the community and a settled attitude of thanksgiving. Empty my heart of anxiety and swearing and the songs of debauchery, and fill me with spirit-music and love for community.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.321: The True Light.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Ephesians 5, Paul says, “Live as children of the light. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness” (Eph 5:8-11).

The James Webb Space Telescope, which started looking into deep space last year, has a heat and light reflecting structure the size of a tennis court. This prevents sunlight and heat from interfering with its view of the universe.

Paul suggests the opposite for Christians. He recommends facing into the light of Jesus and living as children of the light. “Have nothing to do with deeds of darkness” he says. Do not focus on the deep space of depravity and sin. Orient yourself toward God!”

John the gospel writer said of Jesus, “In him was life, and that life was the light of humankind. The light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it” (John 1:4-5). People who met Jesus didn’t understand him. Something like me trying to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity. I just don’t have the smarts to process it. The light of science shines brightly, but somehow it doesn’t illuminate my darkness.

In one of my favorite verses, Paul says this about God’s work of creation: “God who said, Let light shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts” (2 Cor 4:6). God had to do a new work of creation to put the light of Christ in my heart.

The New Testament has three statements that tell us who God is. It says, “God is spirit”, “God is love”, and “God is light”. Because of this, those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth. Those who follow God must love as he loved. And those who serve God must walk in his light. In my better moments, I heed those expectations.

But the call is not so pressing when I wake up, lazy and warm in bed, reluctant to face the day. Shall I sleep in? Skip morning exercises? Bypass morning prayers? Sip a leisurely cup of coffee while doomscolling the internet?

Paul delivers a stinging rebuke: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph 5:14). An odd instruction—”rise from the dead!” Looks like I have a choice: wake up, rise from my dark deadness, and move into the light of Christ. I do wake up eventually, but I’m pretty sure the effort I exert rates low on the scale of “Rise from the dead.”

Let’s pray.

O father, when you said, “Let there be light”, you swept away the darkness. Not long ago you said to my heart, “Let there be light”, and Christ shone on me. But ever since I vascillate between my old darkness and Christ’s light.

Teach me to reject the deeds of darkness. Teach me to come to the light. Let this be my experience: that darkness is passing and the true light is already shining (1 Jn 2:8).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube