Something to Think About
Tom Shrader presents three devotionals built around video clips, using the stories of burn survivor Joel Sonnenberg, Ironman competitor Julie Moss, and father-son team Dick and Rick Hoyt to illustrate timeless spiritual lessons. Drawing from Hebrews 11, 1 Corinthians 9, and 2 Timothy 4, he challenges believers to lean on faith as their sustaining power, to evaluate whether their investments of time and energy are perishable or eternal, and to recognize the sanctifying purpose of suffering. He closes by urging parents to prioritize their children above worldly advancement and by affirming the God-given value of every human life.
“If I did not believe in God, then all these surgeries I've gone through and all the pain and suffering I continue to go through is for nothing.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Standalone Teachings
Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 14 min
Themes: suffering, perseverance, faith, sacrifice, parenting, eternal perspective, human dignity, endurance, parent, struggling with suffering, caregiver, feeling hopeless, facing physical hardship, questioning god's purpose, father, young adult
Scripture: Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:28, 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, James 1:2-3
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, soteriology, cloud of witnesses, theodicy, why god allows suffering, imago dei, eternal reward
Full Transcript
Something to Think About
What we are going to do tonight is something very different. We are going to show you three video clips from the networks, from news and from sports, and then talk about each one of them. In a sense, what we are doing are three devotionals tonight. What we hope is that God will remind you of some things you may have known and forgotten, or somehow use these three very different stories to touch your heart.
Joel Sonnenberg
No one ever forgets Joel Sonnenberg, and Joel Sonnenberg can never forget what happened years ago in a fiery crash on a New Hampshire highway. It was September 15th, 1979. The Sonnenbergs were headed for a long weekend in Maine, having left their Nyack, New York home early that morning, and were just crossing the New Hampshire state line. Joel and his dad were in one car; his mother and sister were in the car behind. Just ahead on I-95 was the Hampton, New Hampshire Toll Plaza.
Trish Noel was at work collecting tolls on what she described as a beautiful, perfect fall New England day. She looked up and saw a truck coming at highway speed and said to the car in her lane, "Oh my God, that truck's not going to stop." The truck hit six cars, and in the last car was two-year-old Joel Sonnenberg. The car burst into flames with Joel still in the back, strapped in his infant seat. What bystanders remember hearing was Mrs. Sonnenberg screaming, "My child, my baby, my baby, somebody help."
Burned over 88 percent of his body, it was a miracle that Joel survived. As Joel himself reflected, "If I was in the fire a second longer or two seconds longer, it was probably impossible for me to live." By the time Joel was four, he had spent two years in the hospital as doctors tried to repair the physical damage from the collision and fire. A new nose gave shape to his face, and surgeons fashioned a hand where one no longer existed. When his friends asked if there was pain from his continuing surgeries, Joel lied and told them no.
By the time Joel was in high school in North Carolina, he was captain of the soccer team, president of the student council, and prince of the junior prom. At Taylor University in Indiana, a small religious college, he was president of the sophomore class. Every day Joel faces challenges — from something as simple as tying his own tie, which he cannot do; his college roommate Jason does it for him. Yet challenges give way to successes, and with his surgically repaired hand Joel is able to operate his computer, ride his bike through campus, and play ping pong, even embarrassing some who decide to take him on.
Twenty-one-year-old Joel Sonnenberg doesn't remember looking any other way, and he is candid about what that means emotionally. "I'm perfectly human and have plenty of emotions that go along with being human. Sometimes I feel great about myself and I don't care what they're staring at, or I don't care how they look away, or how disgusted they are. And other times I don't want that." On the subject of dating, Joel is equally direct: "I date pretty cute girls, too. Sure, I don't date a whole lot of people, because there's got to be a certain person that has to relate to issues that I struggle with every day, that are very complex."
Faith That Gives Meaning
The fact is that the truck that crashed into Joel's car nearly twenty years ago robbed him of many of life's simple pleasures. It was faith, Joel says, not fame, that brought him so far. "You see, this is God's plan. Absolutely. If I did not believe in God, then I'm doing all this pain for nothing. If I did not believe in God, then all these surgeries that I've gone through and continue to go through, and all the pain and suffering that I will continue to go through, is for nothing. It's for dirt."
My point in showing you this is not to prompt the normal reflex of thinking, "I guess I don't have it so bad." That is not at all what I am trying to do. What I want you to do is listen carefully to what Joel is saying. He is saying it is his belief in God — his faith — that makes this life worthwhile. It is his faith that gives meaning to this life and gives life purpose.
It is probably true that no one in this room is going to go through the physical, or perhaps even the emotional, pain that this young man endures every day and, from as close as I can tell, will continue to endure. You will never walk through a mall and have people stare at you quite the way they stare at Joel. And yet the question his story raises applies to every one of us: what is it that gives your life meaning? What is it that makes the pain and difficulty of life worthwhile? Joel's answer is unambiguous — it is his faith in God.
The Foundation of Faith
Every person in this room has difficulties and challenges in life. Everyone in this room, at some point in time — and some of you as recently as today — has wondered if you can go on. How can you continue? How can you find the strength to make it one more day? The answer is so obvious: it is in your faith.
The author of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 11, gives us this definition of faith: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." He uses the word *assurance*, which means absolute certainty. True faith is an absolute certainty of the things that are not always visible.
In *The Message*, Eugene Peterson paraphrases that verse this way: "Trust in God. This is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see." The Phillips translation says it this way: "Faith makes us certain of realities we cannot see." There are things that are just as real and as true as this pulpit. They are invisible to us, but that does not make them any less true. It is our faith that gives us the understanding to see what those things are, and it is our faith that gives us the strength to go yet another day.
Noah: A Picture of Faithful Endurance
In the context of Hebrews 11, the author writes about saints from the Old Testament — he has a list of them. I think of Noah in particular when we speak of faith. Noah hears from God that he is to build an ark. We have no indication that this man has any carpentry skills at all, let alone the ability to build a boat. He is to build this ark miles and miles away from any body of water, and at a time when the earth had never seen rain.
He does not simply throw this ark together. He does not get a kit and put it together overnight. It takes him 120 years to build this ark. You know the people you work with and the people you go to school with — you know that without television and movies, they had to pass the time somehow. So out they go to watch Noah and his family build. And you know they are mocking him. "What is it, Noah? What are you building?" As it begins to take shape: "A boat? In the middle of the desert? A boat? Noah, what are you thinking?"
For 120 years, here is what Noah does: he preaches, and builds, and endures, and obeys God. He does this because he is certain of realities that you cannot always see. You have those same realities in your life — things you cannot see, but which you know from the Word of God are absolutely true. You know that He will never tempt you beyond that which you can endure, that there will never be a test or a trial in your life that He has not promised to give you strength to handle. He has promised to meet your physical needs. He has promised to forgive you.
I know so many Christians who are indeed born again, who know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and yet they carry around all of this guilt, missing the fact that God has given them forgiveness. Those are realities that you cannot always see — and that is the faith. It is the faith Paul spoke of in Romans 8 when he said, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."
Faith Is Not Something to Apologize For
My whole point in that story — and in every one of these stories — is this: you may have a power in your faith that you are not using at all. You may still be trying to do it on your own.
I had not been a Christian very long. When I became a Christian in March of 1980, my conversion was fairly radical, and that was especially clear to those with whom I worked. After a period of time, they saw that this was not just a passing phase. People have to find some way to get their digs in. I still hung out with the guys, and so after work we would go out — they would be having a couple of beers, I would be having a Diet Coke — and we would talk about sports or work or whatever it was. The more beer they had, the more they wanted to talk about my faith. It was the first time I heard this: "You know what, Tom? That faith of yours is a crutch. That's all it is — just a crutch."
I do not think this way very often, and I would love to think it was God who inspired it, but I went home that night and looked up *crutch* in the dictionary. Here is what Webster says a crutch is: "Any of various devices used, often in pairs, by lame people as an aid in walking; anything one leans on or relies on for support or help." I learned not to run away from that statement, but to embrace it — that indeed my faith in Christ is a crutch. I am a lame man who leans on Christ as I walk through life.
We are called to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, to live in a way that is distinctive because of who we are in Christ, and our faith is a crutch. We do not apologize for that. When somebody says to you, "Your faith is a crutch," you say, "That is absolutely true. I would fall on my face if it were not for my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."
So do not look at someone else's trial and say, "I just could never handle something like that." Maybe you could, maybe you could not — but that is not the issue anyway. The issue is this: what are the things God is bringing into your life that you may be ready to say you cannot take? You just need to stop and understand that through Him, you can do what seems to be impossible.
A Story of Perseverance
The second story is the hardest of the three for me. It is the story of a young woman named Julie Moss. She finds herself in an Iron Man race. She has completed the first portions of it and is now in the final part — the marathon. She finds herself in a very unexpected
where did I put them? That's exactly what Paul is getting at. The things that we strive so hard to achieve in this life, as meaningful as they are, as worthy as they are, they are perishable. They fade. They get lost in a drawer somewhere.
The Perishable and the Imperishable
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 24 and 25: "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath. We do it for an imperishable."
Corinth hosted the Corinthian Games, second in status only to the Olympic Games in Athens. Athletic accomplishment was a defining feature of that city and its culture. So Paul uses athletics, as he writes to this church in Corinth, to give them a sense of perspective.
In our lives we find ourselves, like Julie Moss, putting out extraordinary efforts to accomplish worthwhile things. There are students who have set as a goal study, diligence, and preparation so that they might receive a scholarship. There are young men who have just finished two-a-days and are excited that football season has started because the hardest part is behind them. Maybe in your life it is as simple as eating correctly or exercising regularly.
Maybe it is in your area of work where you have exercised extraordinary discipline, self-control, and hard work, and now you are at the top of your profession. Everyone in the office knows it. People throughout the valley know it, perhaps around the state, around the country, or around the world. They know that you have excelled, that you have paid an extraordinary price, and that you have succeeded.
In no way do I want to diminish that. All I am saying is this: let us put it in some perspective. We strive in those areas for an accomplishment that will fade away.
Olympic Gold and a Misplaced Medal Case
We are just a couple of weeks away from the Olympics, and there are athletes who have literally prepared their whole lives for these events. I have a friend — I love to introduce him when we are in a group — and I will say, "This is Charlie, and Charlie won a silver medal in the 1968 Olympics," and everybody says, "Wow." That kills Charlie, because Charlie also won three golds. It is awkward for him to say, "Well, I won three golds too," so it always puts him in an odd spot. That is exactly how I always introduce him. I say, "This is Charlie. He won a silver medal in the 1968 Olympics," and they say, "Wow, that's so cool," and then we walk away and he is dying inside — but I won gold, but I won gold.
There was a time when my girls were just starting their swimming competition, and I said to Charlie, "Will you come over one afternoon and look at the girls? Maybe you can tell from how they are built and how they swim which stroke suits them best. And bring your medals — that will be fun for them to see." So he came, and he had a little display case with the three golds and the silver. I said, "That is so cool." He said, "I had the hardest time finding them. I did not remember where I had put them."
Can you imagine? Think about the effort that went into achieving not one, not two, but three gold medals and a silver — to be the best in the world in three events — and you cannot remember where you put them. That is exactly what Paul is getting at. The things we strive so hard to achieve in this life, as meaningful and as worthy as they are, are perishable. They fade. They end up lost in a drawer somewhere.
Every Day Is an Investment Opportunity
Time typically gives us a sense of perspective. And what I want to talk about here is not sacrifice — I'm talking about investment. Here is what Paul says at the end of his life. You know the passage, 2 Timothy 4: "I am already being poured out as a drink offering. The time of my departure has come. I fought the good fight. I finished the course. I kept the faith." Then he says this in verse 8: "In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day."
I can hear us as we read this going, "Yeah, Paul, good for you." But notice what he adds right after that: "But also to all of you who have loved His appearance." That is our future too. Every day you face an investment opportunity — not just of money, but of time and energy and effort. You can invest in things that are perishable, albeit worthwhile, or in those that are imperishable and last forever.
What lasts forever? God's Word and people. You need to stop and take an inventory. You have to ask yourself: why is it that I say Jesus is my Lord and Savior, and yet the majority of my investment of time, energy, effort, and money is not in His kingdom but in mine? There is no way to diminish that. There are people in this church who have made extraordinary contributions and been very successful in this world, in the marketplace, and in no way do we diminish that. All I am saying is, let's get a little perspective.
The Story of Dick and Rick Hoyt
There is one more clip, and I love this clip. There are so many lessons you could pull out of it — not just a message but a whole series. In January 1962, Dickie Hoyt was born a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. Doctors told Dick and Judy Hoyt to send him to an institution, that he would be a vegetable for life. But his father looked into Rick's eyes and got a strong feeling that Rick knew what was going on.
What they wanted to do was get a computer built so Rick could communicate. He had all these things inside of him but had no way of getting them out. At 37, running still makes Ricky feel like Bobby Orr on a breakaway. He got through public school, received a degree from Boston University, and he is also a giver. While attending a college basketball game, he heard about a charity race to help a paralyzed athlete and asked his dad if they could run — and that is how it started.
It was a five-mile race. When the gun went off, everybody thought that Rick and his dad would just go to the corner, turn around, and come back. They did not. They went the whole five miles and finished next to last — but not last. When they got home that night, Rick wrote on his computer: "Dad, when I'm running, it feels like I'm not even handicapped." They knew right then and there that they had found an event Rick could enjoy just like everybody else.
They would spend at least seventeen hours together on race day — fathers and sons sharing a time of mutual achievement. Despite the wind's effect on their combined weight, a problem with their fifteen-year-old bike, and the pressure of making the marathon transition in time, dealing with adversity is in their soul. As Dick said, Rick is the one that keeps him going. Rick wanted to do this, and he wanted to finish it strong.
Lesson One: Every Human Life Has Value
There are so many lessons in this story. Let me give you three of them. The first thing Rick's dad quoted him as saying was: "Dad, when I'm running, I feel like I'm not handicapped." Rick also spoke for himself through his computer voice, and here is what he said: "What I think is important is that people take the time and effort to realize that, first and foremost, I am a person with a brain and intelligence."
Here is the first lesson: it is time for us again to embrace the fact that human life is important. You still live in a country that every year kills 1.5 million babies, where politicians are still comfortable voting for something called partial-birth abortion. There is also a physician-assisted suicide measure on the ballot in Maine this November, and we know this issue is coming more broadly.
I think most people would have done what that professional advised Rick Hoyt's father to do — said, "Listen, he's a spastic quadriplegic, he's going to be a vegetable all his life; put him in an institution." But the father knew what I think instinctively all of us know: every human life has value, extraordinary value. We live at a time where, if you look right or think right, you are deemed to have value. We are all guilty of that to some degree or another.
If Ricky Hoyt was 37 at the time of this story, then his father had to be close to 60, if not already in his 60s — and there he was. Because he understood the value of human life. Not just perfect human life, but all human life is a gift from God.
Lesson Two
Here is the second thing, and it is so obvious that I will spend little time on it.
The Call to Live for Your Children
Gentlemen, do you see the commitment of that dad? Every father I know says, "I'd die for my kids." That's terrific. Well, you don't have to. You're probably not going to be called on to die for your kids. You're called to do something much more difficult: to live for your kids.
I don't know anything about this story beyond what you just saw, but I would guess that over the years — the 37 years — it has cost Ricky's dad some level of accomplishment in the world system, and certainly some level of expense, to be as available as he is to meet the needs of his son. There was someone in service this morning who has a 28-year-old, severely down syndrome young man, and he came up after the service and talked about how hard that was, and how every once in a while you find yourself asking why. But then he smiled and said, "I don't really need to know why. God didn't want me to know why. God wants me to obey."
Gentlemen, God has given you children, and your responsibility, I believe, is to put your life in a secondary position to theirs and to meet their needs. I didn't talk about it this morning because Susan and the girls were here, but we were gone on vacation — Sarah's 20 and Haley's 19 — and we were on a cruise. We ate together every evening, and several of the nights they wore long, formal dresses. I didn't put on a tie one night. We danced, and I watched them, and I thought: where did the 20 years go? And I was a father who understood this was happening — but it's still just gone. Those are the things that are much more important than the perishable things.
The Purpose of Suffering
The last lesson I draw from this story is the importance of suffering in a life. One of the things I am so proud of at East Valley Bible Church is that when somebody comes in hurting, we do not intervene immediately and try to stop the pain. That is one of the great mistakes our society is making, and it is leading us to all sorts of bad policy and bad decisions. We are trying to create a life that is perfect, with no hurt and no pain.
I was talking to a fellow the other night who is involved in a very large church here in the East Valley, and he was saying, "One of the things I think we're doing wrong is we've got programs for everything. Somebody comes in with a hurt, and we get them right into a program." Our question to him is: what do you think God is teaching you? I understand the danger — that could be very insensitive. It's not that we don't help. But oftentimes God uses suffering and pain to teach us. That is when we are most coachable: when we are hurting.
If God is teaching you something and we intervene and stop that educational process, He is going to come back with that lesson again and again and again until He teaches you. He does that most frequently through suffering and pain. That is why James wrote, "Count it all joy, brethren, when you encounter various trials, because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance."
You have people in your life — not just heroes in the Bible or people you see on TV, but real-life heroes, mentors — and you look at them and say, "How can their faith be so deep?" Almost always, if you go and ask them, they will say, "Let me tell you how it grew. It grew through suffering and pain and hardship."
Something to Think About
I knew you had an extra day this holiday, and I wanted to give you something to think about, something to use as a grid in your own life. Maybe it is like Joel — maybe you need to be reminded of the great power and depth that you have in your faith. Maybe you have the gift of salvation and you have faith, but you haven't really allowed that faith to grow to the extraordinary depths that allows you to do mighty and powerful things — not because you are so great, but because so great is the God who lives in you.
Or maybe it is like Julie Moss. Maybe you are a hard charger who can accomplish things, who is winning, who has trophies and medals and accomplishments — but they are all perishable. And all of a sudden you realize you have been investing in building your kingdom and not God's.
Or maybe it is like Ricky and his dad. Maybe you need to be reminded that in this cold world that continues to diminish human life — and it is so obvious: if we will kill the unborn, it is not long before we will kill humans who don't measure up, who aren't perfect — maybe you need to be reminded of the value of human life. Maybe you are a parent who needs to be reminded of that sacred contract you have with your children.
Or maybe you are in the midst of suffering and pain and have become so self-absorbed in it that you have missed the lesson God is teaching you. I don't know. What we wanted to do is give you something to think about this week.
Let's pray together. Father, I have no clue how You want to apply these lessons in our lives, but I don't need to know. I pray that Your Spirit would do that for each man, woman, student, and child who is here tonight — that You would use this time to teach us. Father, we pray these things to You in Jesus' name, amen.