Precipice

FADE IN:

It's been weeks now that Bruce has been praying. Serving. Caring. For his father who is battling what doctors tell him is an immune system malfunction leaving his blood deficient in platelets.

I myself was diagnosed (in March 2006) with chronic kidney disease due to IgA Nephropathy - my kidneys have been declared unviable. It's a degenerative disease. I'm 23-years-old, and my doctors have told me that my immune system has been silently attacking my own kidneys since I was (roughly around) 13 years old, and that there's no stopping it.

But, now I'm showing signs of recovery. Barely a week out of the hospital I was taken off of all my blood pressure meds. And two months ago the evaluation was: "Your kidneys are holding up." As of last week it's: "Your kidneys are stable."

And starting this past Sunday, I can feel a renewed surge of energy and clarity of mind, that I hadn't known since March.

Bruce's father, too, is healing. Doctors can't figure it out but they took him off all meds 2 weeks ago, and suddenly, "unexplainably" his platelets are rising. Today they crossed into six figures - more than twice what the doctors were aiming for. (Bruce is now praying harder than ever, though - says he's holding out for perfect!).

Is it okay if I believe that these are simply manifestations of God's healing grace, "For by His wounds we have been healed."

And now JOHN is "front page news" over at ChristianityTodayMovies.com

DISSOLVE TO:

The title of this blog entry is "precipice." Webster's Dictionary defines the word this way: "a very steep or overhanging place."

That's exactly where I feel I am in my life. (What is going to be the final outcome? How will these themes play out in my life?) And that seems to reflect the current nature of this JOHN journey - as if He's pushing us toward another precipice. But, exactly what it is, or where it's headed, or how all the details will weave together in His hands, is a mystery to me.

And that's when I remember what Bruce has been saying all along - that God is building a testimony through JOHN. That, the story of the making of JOHN will ultimately be a testament to the sheer "bigness of God," unimaginable, and that testimony is as important as JOHN itself.

This is why Bruce is approaching JOHN the way it's being approached, as God put it on his heart and as God led him. Bruce has said it many times: God desires to build a testimony through the making of JOHN by which it will be impossible for anyone to take credit or glory - by which it will be so obviously only by HIM.

I'm a youth pastor. My heart goes out for my students and today's teen-agers who don't remember the passion and joy-of-Jesus that was the film Matthew. (They don't remember Star Trek, either - in any of its various incarnations.)

All kidding aside, I think it's time the Gospel be put on film one more time - for the Boomers with their emptying nests, for Generation X-ers with new families, and for my generation - the Millenial Generation - who are growing up in a distinctively artificial world of MySpace and iPod.

And if it means going through the Refiner's fire one more time, that's okay. If it's going to mean more souls coming face-to-face with Jesus the Son of the Living God - then it's worth it all.

Because, on the other side of this precipice, I know Who stands there to catch me.