A New Day

Seventy-Eight today.  It’s unusual but I feel every year of it after a week in Emory Hospital, Atlanta.  I am feeling good but physically depleted. The experience was horrific with heavy medications required to bring me back from the brink and keep me alive, also inducing a world of confusion and days when fantasy and reality vied for attention. Most of that time is and will likely remain a mystery with no desire to return.  But PRAISE THE LORD, I AM BACK!


After my Doctor in Melbourne received the partial information from the team of Doctors in Atlanta he was able to confirm something that Friede and I had already determined: That the medications used and prescribed during the experience in the Atlanta Airport and days following comprised a life and death event which is to say it could have gone either way I suppose it is fitting to say, “A miss is as good as a mile!


A few days ago it was determined that there was little to no heart damage through the ordeal. The position for the future will rather certainly involve curtailing the kind of demands I have been accustomed to in past years and this will be tough. I believe the plans will enable the following:

             
Working smarter instead of harder;
     
Being more than doing;

             
Burning brighter without burning out;

             
Releasing the Father’s legacy of sons and daughters who are discovering, declaring and demonstrating the Kingdom of God to the edge of eternity. These all will be my resolve.


Bottom line: I will cancel 30-50% of my schedule, accept only engagements that are Kingdom connected and deliberately arrange for days and weeks of rest, research, recreation and recharging.


The list of heroes during those days grows rapidly with Friede, Tim, David van Cronkhite, and  Leif and Jennifer Hetland and others soaring around the top.  The more than 500 responses to Tim’s reports and updates were incredibly encouraging, many asking what they might do for us.  As God permits I will be answering these soon. I literally experienced a spike in energy from reading them.  Thank you!


I don’t know all that happened to me in that place from which I just returned a few days ago but I do know that I love life, my wife, my family and you more than I did.  I love God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, my sons and daughters and others more than I did before. I love the Kingdom more.  I even love me more. For goodness’ sake, I nearly lost my own body and that is a frightening thought. That leaves getting around here and just showing up very difficult.


I do anticipate heaven but I do not find excitement about being in the next load out.  I discovered 23 years ago during another near-death experience that I did not find joy in thinking about the world without me in it.  I chose life then; I choose life now.


 Gear up, gird up and grow up with me as we proceed into the next season of life.


Weaker but Wiser, Still . . .Singing in the Reign,


Papa Jack