The King Sought Him Out

This is Peter Rosenberger and one of the reasons I wrote my new book A Minute for Caregivers is because I remember the sinking, despairing feeling of struggling as a caregiver. No one knew what to say to me. I didn't understand and others didn't understand me.

For decades I foraged along and tried to find my path through this medical nightmare that Gracie and I have endured for nearly 40 years. And I've learned to speak the language of caregivers. I speak fluent caregiver. No pastor, no counselor, no medical provider, no friend should ever throw their hands up and say I don't know what to say to that caregiver.

Because I do. Give them a copy. This book is called A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday. They're easy to read, one minute chapters that speak directly to the heart of a caregiver and you can get them wherever books are sold. A Minute for Caregivers when every day feels like Monday.

Friends don't let friends caregiver load. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger. That is Gracie with Russ Taft from her CD Resilient and I love her singing that song, The Joy of the Lord.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com, Hopeforthecaregiver.com. I want to turn your attention to a very unusual story in scripture that a lot of people may not know. Gracie was struggling the other day and I pulled out her Bible and I read to her from this passage in 2 Samuel.

Now let me give you some background on this. King Saul and Jonathan had been killed in battle. And now David was anointed king, you know that. And he became king but he wasn't king of the entire nation right off the bat. Saul had another son named Ishbaseth.

I think I'm saying that right. And he was proclaimed king by I believe Abner, one of Saul's generals. And he ruled outside of Judah.

David was in Judah. And Ishbaseth was sleeping and two guys came in who had been part of his kind of mercenaries that had worked for Ishbaseth and they killed him in his sleep. And they cut off his head and they took it to David thinking that they were going to get a reward. Now you remember when Saul died he threw himself on his own sword. The servant said he wouldn't kill Saul and Saul threw himself on his own sword and killed him. And then the servant went and told David the news but the servant lied and took credit for it and David killed the servant for touching the Lord's anointing.

He said your words have done this. And even though the guy didn't do it he just lied about it in order to take credit for it and David killed him. Now flash forward a bit of time and Saul's other son Jonathan's brother Ishbaseth was king of part of the nation. And then these two guys went in and killed him in his sleep, took off his head and took it to David in order to curry favor with David. And David referenced back again what he did with the guy who claimed to kill Saul. And he killed those guys right there had them killed and cut off their hands I believe their feet and hung them up for everyone to see because they had gone against the king. So it didn't work out for either one of those guys.

It was a pretty rough time back then. So then David assumes kingship over all of Israel. And he was musing one day and he called in a guy named Ziba. Ziba was the servant to Saul. And he said are any of Saul's family still alive that I may take care of?

Now normally when a throne changed hands from a different family they killed all the other relatives of the prior sovereign in order to make sure that they weren't threatened when David didn't want to do that. And Ziba told David about Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son. He said that he was crippled as a child. A couple chapters later you hear the story of how he became crippled. His nurse was fleeing with him after they heard that Jonathan and Saul had fallen in battle and she dropped him as a kid and evidently broke his feet, crippled his feet somehow and he was crippled for life. So he mentioned two times there, now Ziba mentions that he's crippled. And then later on they mention he's crippled. Four times scripture mentions that this guy is crippled.

Now I'm reading this to Gracie. And Mephibosheth was living in a place called Lo Debar which was translated barrenness, waste, desolation, shame. He was basically an outcast and he was a cripple. And back in those days they didn't have handicap accessibility.

If you were crippled up until, well if you had any kind of mobility impairments anywhere in the world up until about 1991 life was a bit challenging for you. And he was brought before David. He said he bowed low to David.

Now I want you to imagine how difficult it is for a man who is crippled to bow. And Mephibosheth had no idea what was going on. He was expecting to be treated poorly and possibly killed.

That was standard operating procedure back then. And he referred to himself as a dog. He said, what do you want with me?

I'm just a dog. And David did the unexpected. He told Ziba, he said I'm giving Saul's land to Mephibosheth and I want you and your servants, I think he had a bunch of servants and a bunch of kids, I want you to farm that land so that you could support Mephibosheth.

And he's going to sit at my table and eat from my table. And for the rest of his life that's what Mephibosheth did. You remember Jonathan and David were very close and he honored his deep friendship with Jonathan. Mephibosheth had no idea. He was living in desolation, literally in a place called Desolation.

And the king sought him out. And I read this to Gracie in her hospital bed. She was having a hard day. And I looked at her and I said to Gracie, you know more than most what the definition of cripple is. She's missing both legs. And you have been in this hospital for weeks and weeks and this is not your first rodeo. In a place of barrenness and despair. Desolation.

Her body is just broken. And I looked at my wife and I said, but the great news is your king has sought you out. He has sought you out and he has put you at his table. David honored the covenant he made with Jonathan by taking care of Jonathan's son. God made a covenant with Abraham of which we are party to now by faith. And he swore by himself because there was nothing greater that he could swear by. God swore by his own name.

And I said this to Gracie and he sought you out. That is the great news. That is the gospel. Mephibosheth was not healed. He remained crippled. Four times scripture mentioned that he was crippled. And if scripture is going to repeat something that many times we might want to pay attention to it. Why am I sharing this with you all of what I shared with Gracie.

Gracie has clear evidence of her body's infirmity. And she and I both know what it's like to live in a place of despair. We both have been there.

But we also are keenly aware and require reminding that our king sought us out. We had no hope. We had nothing. And the reality is all of us are crippled living in Lodibar. We're all there. Every one of us. Whether we acknowledge it or not. Whether we even realize it or not.

That is the state. The hopeless state of mankind. And yet our king sought us out. What an amazing story. There's a greater David who sought us out in our despair.

And puts us at his table. These are things that sustain me and Gracie in our journey. And we require reminding of it. I have caregiver amnesia.

I have gospel amnesia. And I need to be reminded every day. That's why I love that old hymn.

Sing them over and over again. Wonderful words of life. Beautiful words. Wonderful words. Wonderful words of life.

To remind myself. And then I say I love to tell the story of Jesus and his love. I saw a quote the other day from Martin Lloyd Jones. The great Welsh minister who I don't know if you know who he is but it would be worth your time to do some research on him. He went to St. Bart's I think it's called the medical school. He was a doctor by training. And that's the school where the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes went to. Where they had so much forensic training. But Martin Lloyd Jones actually went to this place and was a brilliant medical doctor who came to Christ and then went into the ministry.

He took that amazing mind of his and just left a huge body of work. And in this quote he said I am more than ever convinced that the trouble with many Christian people is that they do not preach to themselves. We should spend time every day preaching to ourselves.

Martin Lloyd Jones. And so what I do on this program I want you all to know this. I preach to myself. I am constantly needing reminding and reassuring of the gospel. Not because of anything Christ omitted but because of my fallen state. To anchor myself into that. To think on this daily. So that when my wife is despairing that I can remind her as well. That her king sought her out. Even in her crippled state.

And he has placed her at his table. And I would say to you my fellow caregivers. Many of you feel crippled. Whether emotionally or even physically. You feel despairing. You feel broken. You feel lost. You feel shame. You feel all of those things.

And you may indeed be just immersed in that. But the gospel is is that your king through nothing you've done has sought you out. Your king has offered you a place at his table. And provides for you. Doesn't mean that your challenges in this life will be evaporated and instantly overcome and done and everything's good and your just life is happy happy happy all the time time time. Doesn't mean that because Mephibosheth lived the rest of his life crippled. But he lived the rest of his life sitting at the king's table.

In a place of honor. There is a greater David who has done this for you and for me. That's why I can look at Gracie and say you will walk and not grow weary. You will run and not grow faint. May not happen in this lifetime.

Doesn't appear that it will. And he will sustain us and we will endure as I said the last block. But his promises are true. To you and to me. And we can endure. We can stay steadfast. We can see striving.

We can be at rest knowing that our king sought us out. What a picture of the gospel. See that's the gospel. That is the gospel. That's the good news. We have to hear the bad news. And scripture said four times the bad news that this guy was crippled. He was in a bad place.

But then the king sought him out. And that's the good news. That is the gospel. And that is hope for the caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. You've heard me talk about standing with hope over the years. This is the prosthetic limb ministry that Gracie envisioned after losing both of her legs. Part of that outreach is our prosthetic limb recycling program. Did you know that prosthetic limbs can be recycled?

No kidding. There is a correctional facility in Arizona that helps us recycle prosthetic limbs. And this facility is run by a group out of Nashville called Core Civic. We met them over 11 years ago and they stepped in to help us with this recycling program of taking prostheses and you disassemble them. You take the knee, the foot, the pylon, the tube clamps, the adapters, the screws, the liners, the prosthetic socks, all these things we can reuse and inmates help us do it. Before Core Civic came along, I was sitting on the floor at our house or out in the garage when we lived in Nashville and I had tools everywhere, limbs everywhere, and feet, boxes of them and so forth. And I was doing all this myself and I'd make the kids help me.

And it got to be too much for me. And so I was very grateful that Core Civic stepped up and said, look, we are always looking for faith-based programs that are interesting and that give inmates a sense of satisfaction. And we'd love to be a part of this and that's what they're doing. And you can see more about that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. So please help us get the word out that we do recycle prosthetic limbs. We do arms as well, but the majority of amputations are lower limb and that's where the focus of Standing With Hope is. That's where Gracie's life is with her lower limb prosthesis. And she's used some of her own limbs in this outreach that she's recycled.

I mean, she's been an amputee for over 30 years. So you go through a lot of legs and parts and other types of materials and you can reuse prosthetic socks and liners if they're in good shape. All of this helps give the gift that keeps on walking and it goes to this prison in Arizona where it's such an extraordinary ministry. Think with that, inmates volunteering for this, they want to do it.

And they've had amazing times with it and I've had very moving conversation with the inmates that work in this program. And you can see again, all of that at standingwithhope.com slash recycle. They're putting together a big shipment right now for us to ship over. We do this pretty regularly throughout the year as inventory rises and they need it badly in Ghana. So please go out to standingwithhope.com slash recycle and get the word out and help us do more. If you want to offset some of the shipping, you can always go to the giving page and be a part of what we're doing there.

We're purchasing material in Ghana that they have to use that can't be recycled. We're shipping over stuff that can be, and we're doing all of this to lift others up and to point them to Christ. And that's the whole purpose of everything that we do. And that is why Gracie and I continue to be standing with hope. Standingwithhope.com.