Today, I want to spend my time online writing about my older brother, Danny, and the way that God has turned his life upside-down during this past year. But first a little background...
Danny is biologically my half-brother, the son of my father and his first wife. He is 11 years older than I am. We did not grow up together, since he lived in California with his mom and her extended family and I lived with my parents in Arkansas. He would visit in the summers when I was little, and then that stopped as well, so I went years without seeing him. During my childhood and teenage years, I held a deep love for the teenage boy who played with me when I was a preschooler. I missed him and prayed for him almost every day through my adolescent and teenage years. I can say with complete honesty that it was the longing of my heart during all of my growing-up years for this brother of mine to come to know the Lord.
When I was a teenager, I would hear tidbits from Mom & Dad's conversations that told me what Danny's life was like. I knew that he was always trying to break into the entertainment business, as a model, singer, actor, and dancer. He was successful enough to make a living, but he never got the big break he was looking for. In his late 20s, he moved on to start a web design business (back before everyone else was doing that). During these years of growing up and living as an adult in Los Angeles, Danny's life was best described by King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11.
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."
The summer that I was 20 and Danny was 31, I flew out to Los Angeles on my own, determined to reacquaint myself with this brother of mine. We shared a wonderful week together, during which my childhood love for him was renewed and allowed to mature. He was as fascinating and personable as I remembered, though jaded and worldly in ways I did not remember. Most painful to me was his casual dismissal of all things religious. He considered himself to be spiritual, but was very put off by the idea that there was any sort of truth to be sought out or that any one Savior could speak to all people. He believed, like most postmoderns of our generation, that truth and even reality is entirely subjective, and that the only unpardonable belief is that you are "right" and others are "wrong" (translated in postmodern jargon as "intolerance"). In some ways it was fascinating to discuss my faith with him, because he challenged me from several angles I hadn't considered before. But in other ways, it deeply grieved me, because I saw that my lifetime hope of seeing him meet the Lord was still not anywhere near.
On February 3 of this year, almost nine years after my trip out to California, I got an email from Danny saying that the Lord had taken ahold of him. At the suggestion/insistence of his brother-in-law, he had spent the previous weekend attending a Christian men's conference. He left that place a new man, convicted of his sin and saved by the grace of our Lord. Despite some very difficult and painful experiences, his fervor and commitment has not waned since that day more than six months ago. His life has literally been turned upside down, and he is praising God around every turn. He clings to his faith with a passion that leaves me in awe of our God. There are tears in my eyes as I type this: now my brother is truly my brother in every way.
For all of you out there who long for those you love to know the Lord as you do, have faith! God does not give up on any of his children, no matter where they live, what they have done, or what they currently believe. He seeks to reclaim the heart of each one of his precious ones, and his longing for reconcilition will always be stronger and greater than your own.
Danny is biologically my half-brother, the son of my father and his first wife. He is 11 years older than I am. We did not grow up together, since he lived in California with his mom and her extended family and I lived with my parents in Arkansas. He would visit in the summers when I was little, and then that stopped as well, so I went years without seeing him. During my childhood and teenage years, I held a deep love for the teenage boy who played with me when I was a preschooler. I missed him and prayed for him almost every day through my adolescent and teenage years. I can say with complete honesty that it was the longing of my heart during all of my growing-up years for this brother of mine to come to know the Lord.
When I was a teenager, I would hear tidbits from Mom & Dad's conversations that told me what Danny's life was like. I knew that he was always trying to break into the entertainment business, as a model, singer, actor, and dancer. He was successful enough to make a living, but he never got the big break he was looking for. In his late 20s, he moved on to start a web design business (back before everyone else was doing that). During these years of growing up and living as an adult in Los Angeles, Danny's life was best described by King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11.
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."
The summer that I was 20 and Danny was 31, I flew out to Los Angeles on my own, determined to reacquaint myself with this brother of mine. We shared a wonderful week together, during which my childhood love for him was renewed and allowed to mature. He was as fascinating and personable as I remembered, though jaded and worldly in ways I did not remember. Most painful to me was his casual dismissal of all things religious. He considered himself to be spiritual, but was very put off by the idea that there was any sort of truth to be sought out or that any one Savior could speak to all people. He believed, like most postmoderns of our generation, that truth and even reality is entirely subjective, and that the only unpardonable belief is that you are "right" and others are "wrong" (translated in postmodern jargon as "intolerance"). In some ways it was fascinating to discuss my faith with him, because he challenged me from several angles I hadn't considered before. But in other ways, it deeply grieved me, because I saw that my lifetime hope of seeing him meet the Lord was still not anywhere near.
On February 3 of this year, almost nine years after my trip out to California, I got an email from Danny saying that the Lord had taken ahold of him. At the suggestion/insistence of his brother-in-law, he had spent the previous weekend attending a Christian men's conference. He left that place a new man, convicted of his sin and saved by the grace of our Lord. Despite some very difficult and painful experiences, his fervor and commitment has not waned since that day more than six months ago. His life has literally been turned upside down, and he is praising God around every turn. He clings to his faith with a passion that leaves me in awe of our God. There are tears in my eyes as I type this: now my brother is truly my brother in every way.
For all of you out there who long for those you love to know the Lord as you do, have faith! God does not give up on any of his children, no matter where they live, what they have done, or what they currently believe. He seeks to reclaim the heart of each one of his precious ones, and his longing for reconcilition will always be stronger and greater than your own.
Danny and our dad, hiking on one of their annual trips out west.
No comments:
Post a Comment