Tag: Steve Hayner

Saints and Sinners and What Matters

February 25, 2015 /

We flew to Atlanta Monday morning for the memorial service of a dear friend. A saint and a sinner like all of us, but also a man who has left a powerful kingdom legacy that inspires thousands.

It’s been a weird, hard, mystical journey that we have participated in from afar the past 9 months as Steve died “well”; honest about the pain and even fear, of letting go, but also the joy of reaching out to heaven – the next leg of the eternal life he began with Jesus here on this earth.

We left Minneapolis at 14 below zero and deplaned in a tropical 46 degrees. As we drove to the hilly, pine-forested suburb of Peachtree, I was amazed by the gift of purply pansies, crocuses, and yellow jonquils, defiantly triumphing over February. A courageous picture of the life we were celebrating.IMG_3856

I sat in the classic white, sanctuary before the service, buzzing with people of faith, converging from states coast to coast, greeting each other. Bound together by Jesus and grace. Hard to imagine more prestigious national ministry leaders gathered in one place.

I felt inspired, strengthened, sobered by the privilege of standing together before our God, singing lustily “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God our Father…”

Side by side stood book writers, soul winners, slave rescuers, well diggers, good news bringers, and advisors to presidents.
Prophets, pastors, and professors with voices raised together in worship. The room was filled with so many we know, love, have served with… Scattered throughout the sanctuary were friends who have fertilized and cultivated our small faith.

There were others too, who have impacted us differently: a pastor removed from ministry for a “moral failing”, another divorced and remarried, his ex-wife also present. Across the room, a ministry leader who deeply wounded me, and a supremely confident, sharp-witted woman with whom I feel small and intimidated. Continue reading

The Trip Home

February 4, 2015 /

Some trips are just, well…delightful.  There was the time we got bumped up to First Class on a flight to London.  We felt like royalty, and tried not to look too giddy as we sipped our champagne, pretending this was oh so everyday for us. But this type of trip is rare.

But mostly in life we seem to get the other kind of journey.  Like the time we were on a bus driving from Israel across the desert to Cairo, Egypt and the air conditioning broke, and one of the women on the bus was so sick we had to keep stopping for her to get off and throw up in the scorching sand on the side of the road. We hold our breath and try to be patient and wonder if it will ever end. We try to think good thoughts.

The other day our good friend Steve died. And the last few months of Steve’s life were a rough journey.  A teeny tiny bit like our trip to Cairo.

Less than a year ago I was with Steve and his wife Sharol at a global prayer gathering, enjoying sweet times with them, our heads bowed together, coming before the Lord on behalf of those people suffering injustice around the world.

A couple weeks later, Steve was diagnosed with his own personal injustice – pancreatic cancer.

Over the next nine months, the community around Steve, and we, from a distance, had the privilege of walking him Home and learning from him on the way. Continue reading

5 Questions About Your Time

January 12, 2015 /

Time.  I’ve always felt like it’s there in limitless supply.

Oh, yeah, there are stress-filled days where there don’t seem to be enough minutes in 24 hours to get everything done, but there’s always Tuesday and Wednesday and June 25th 2020, full to the brim with more of life to live.

I buy into the conviction that I need to be responsible for stewarding my time well, but I also live like a perpetually bullet-proof twenty-something.

Over the past nine months John and I have had a friend teach us much about living and dying, about heaven and earth, time and eternity.  HIs name is Steve and he is dying of Pancreatic cancer.  He and his wife, Sharol, have walked this hard road with authenticity, faith, courage and vulnerability.  I asked Steve if I could share some of his thoughts on time in the post today.  These reflections come from a place of physical weakness and a greater awareness of limited time. Continue reading

What to do When You’re Stuck, part 2

May 29, 2014 /

Tuesday (yes, I’m a little off schedule with the holiday weekend) I wrote about the universal experience of feeling stuck from time to time.  For a week, or a month, or maybe you feel like you’re living a “stuck” life.

I shared some things I’ve been learning and trying to apply from Nehemiah who never acted without praying, and never prayed without acting.  Like peanut butter and jelly, prayer and action were inseparable in Nehemiah’s life as he got the Israelites unstuck and lead them in re-building the walls around Jerusalem.

But it turns out there was more.  Instead of pb & j, it was more like a BLT.  There was a third distinguishing characteristic in Nehemiah’s life – praise.

Over and over again he acknowledges dependence on God’s character – His power, His help, His care.  Nehemiah doesn’t lose sight of who’s God and who’s NOT.  He prays on behalf of the people “whom You redeemed by YOUR great strength and YOUR mighty hand.”

He reminds others “our God will fight for us” and says “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome…”  He tells others about “the gracious hand of God” repeatedly, and acknowledges the work is done “with the help of our God.”

So…PRAY, ACT, PRAISE, REPEAT.  But what if this “magic” formula doesn’t work in 52 days like it did for Nehemiah?

Sometimes I believe we stay stuck because God is at work “unsticking” other stuff in us that we’re not aware needs unsticking.  Character stuff that may not be our priority, but is His.  Like the stubborn leftover egg in a frying pan, He scrapes away.Unknown

What if our prayers in these seasons included, “Lord, help me not just to obsess on getting unstuck, but for as long as I’m here, show me what You want to form in me.  Help me to be present to You in each moment.”

Our friend, Steve Hayner, is “stuck” in a season of scary, debilitating cancer.  He is beautifully living out a life with similar character qualities to Nehemiah.  The other day he wrote this:

 In J.B. Phillips’ translation of the New Testament, he renders Romans 5:1-5 this way: 

1-2 Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through [Christ] we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.

3-5 This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.

 

These were great verses to wake up to this morning.  Life is lived in the grace of Jesus through and through–whether the grace is obvious in our immediate circumstances or not. With Jesus at work in our lives, God’s “good” is always being done and we always continue to grow and to be transformed.
Have you been in a situation of feeling “stuck” over a long season?  What do you feel like God was forming in you?

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