Heaven's Heartbeat - Dad's Question

“Son, how’s your relationship with the Lord?”

He was looking into my eyes, and the question caught me off guard. I stumbled a bit with my reply.

“Well, it’s good, Dad. At least—I hope it’s good.”  

Dad’s earthly journey would end just a few weeks later. He was literally on his deathbed. Coming from my father as it did, the question was especially jarring. Dad had never been one for church or anything approaching “spiritual” discussions.

Two years before his death, however, on a Sunday morning in August, he and mom drove a couple of hours to the church where I served as a pastor, surprising us with their attendance.

At the end of the service, I offered an invitation for those who chose to surrender their lives to Jesus to stand. And in a church full of people, one man stood to his feet. My dad. In that moment, a slight breeze would have knocked me over. A few months later, the folks drove to join us again on Sunday. This time, I baptized Dad in water, as a public confession of his faith in Jesus.

Dad’s Baptism (November 1996)

And now, in one of our last conversations, he was checking on me, the pastor.

“How’s your relationship with the Lord?”

Has anyone ever asked you that question? It may not always be easy to articulate an answer. We might feel defensive. We might find ourselves thinking, And who are YOU to be asking this question of ME? Do you think you have the moral high ground here?

What gives people the right to question another’s relationship with God? An article by Pastor Mike Woodruff recently enlarged my thinking about this:

“Not everyone is as wise, thoughtful, and self-aware as you and me (especially me). Indeed, if hypocrisy were helium, most people would have funny voices. But there is something to be said about this. I appreciate those who advertise high standards, even if they fail to keep them. At least they recognize them. Many today no longer do.”

Pastor Woodruff makes a good point. And so does the prophet Ezekiel.

Admittedly, Ezekiel was an odd sort of fellow—even in his own day. Cut from the same bolt of cloth as most other Bible prophets, Ezekiel had an encounter with the Most High God that put him face down in the dust. And that has a tendency to change a person’s perspective. When the Lord stood him back on his feet, he was given a message of new hope and a call for the nation to receive a new heart. Tracing the prophet’s steps, it’s easy to see he had no political ambitions. Ezekiel didn’t care about “politically correct,” and he refused mince words when he delivered the Lord’s message to the religious elite of his day. You might say it bordered on trash-talking.

In the biblical book bearing his name, Ezekiel posed questions to his fellow exiles similar to the one my dad posed to me: “How’s your relationship with the Lord?”

He was direct and he didn’t tip-toe around the hard truths. You might say he harangued people—who already had trouble accepting his outlandish method and manner. But please don’t cancel him. There’s much more to Ezekiel than chapters 38 and 39. He was a priest who had been called to be a prophet—and then commissioned to be a watchman.

As a priest, he was ready to roll up his sleeves to bless and serve the spiritual needs of Israel. As a prophet, he had no hesitation delivering God’s message of judgment and doom on His adversaries. As a watchman, he possessed a keen sense of spiritual situational awareness that would preserve and protect God’s people—if only they would listen and heed his voice.

But there’s a lot of bad news that people must face and be honest about before attention is given to the good news. Ezekiel had been in Babylonian exile for 12 years; Jerusalem was a charred ruin, the temple had been leveled, and survivors in the land were few. The people Ezekiel preached to may have thought everything was fine, but it was not fine at all. Ezekiel chapter 33 is a pivotal point in the book. Good news was coming, but not yet.

Humans then and today have always had an amazing ability to deny or explain away reality though it is staring them in the face. We can spin it, and pretend that shocking and scandalous events “aren’t really what they seem.” But truth is an immovable force.

That’s why my dad’s question rocked my world. Had the Lord revealed something to him about my life that I couldn’t even see myself? Was my relationship with Jesus as “good” as I assumed it was? How long had it been since I asked the Lord what He thought of our relationship? Perhaps this is what Paul was thinking about when he wrote these pithy words to the wealthy, spiritually slick church in Corinth:

Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it

2 Corinthians 13:5 AMP

“Son, how’s your relationship with the Lord?”

On that day, my dad was like a Priest, Prophet and Watchman in my life. I’m sure he had no idea how his question and his concern would shape my life and my eternity. Someday, I will tell him.

Until then, I have to keep my ears open to what the Spirit is saying.

- Micah