Why

The question I was asked most often at this time last year was a simple one, “Why?” Why would I donate my kidney to someone I had known for only a year? My favorite was from the Denver Post reporter who, when I mentioned that we were having a special day at church to thank God, put it this way – “Why Thank God?” That one still makes me laugh.

But my purpose is not really to tell you that story, but more to tell you what I have learned a year later. In some ways this story is really a snapshot of my purpose for the blog, to tell people what I have learned as a Christian. I by no means am an expert; for the most part this blog is a “don’t do the dumb things I have” list. But I also have some very strong beliefs about God and how he works and they are vital to me. And since none of us make this journey we call “life” in isolation, perhaps some of what I’ve learned or am learning can be valuable.

Because there is one thing I know absolutely - I have no idea what I am doing. But I am learning, I’m learning each and every day who I am. I’m learning who God created and recreated me to be. I’m learning what it means to follow Jesus.

Jesus said it clearly enough, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’” Lots of people have had their idea of what Jesus meant when he said that. One of my favorites comes from a German Pastor named Dietrich Bonheoffer who wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." (The Cost of Discipleship)

And in my opinion this is where God made a BIG mistake. Actually I guess you could say he made a mistake from the very Beginning. For In the Beginning God created his people to be part of how he works. In the simplest of terms God, who can do anything, wanted us to join him in what he is doing. He wants to use us.

Which is how I ended up in a hospital bed with one kidney. Because as I prayed with Jon the first day he was in the hospital with kidney failure and as I continued to pray for Jon over the next year God was slowly but surely answering that prayer. I just didn’t know how intimately I’d be involved in that answer.

Of course, God could have zapped Jon with a bolt of lightning or even healed him with a TV evangelist. But he didn’t. Because in “healing” Jon he also wanted to heal me. He wanted to shape and mold me, to change my heart. God wanted me to learn what it means to follow Him.

Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

So over the days and months of praying with Jon, through all the screening process at the hospital, God was slowly but surely teaching me what it means to follow Jesus. It means that I no longer live for myself, it means that I am part (however small and insignificant it may seem) of what He is doing. And not out of any compulsion, or guilt or even because I “owe” it to God. But simply because this is who God made and has remade me to be. This is what it means to be in Christ, a new creation. It’s not complete yet, not even close. But I am learning, I am learning who I am.

So this is what I have learned a year later. Pray, pray and tell God what your need, what you are afraid of, what you are facing - because God does indeed hear and answer. In fact he loves doing it. But I’d also encourage you to pray and ask God to show you how to be His answer to someone else’s prayer. Why? Because that’s who you are.

P.S. Even as I write this God has brought another person to our church who needs a kidney transplant. Her name is Shelly and she with her husband and son need your prayers. And if you’d like to learn more about organ donation check out http://www.donatelife.net/