“The Secret for Success”
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
First Presbyterian Church, Waunakee
October 20, 2002
I called my friend Brett Barber this week. And before I get too far into this story, I want you to know that I asked Brett’s permission to share with you his name and these details. Brett is a friend. He is also a former parishioner of mine. He’s facing surgery soon and is just biding his time, trying to stay comfortable, while he waits for the call to get to the hospital.
Brett is 48 years old and this coming surgery will be his sixth in five years. He has a cancer called appendiceal Adenocarcinoma; which, he tells me, essentially means that cancer is eating up his abdominal cavity.
It might be helpful for you to know something of Brett the man. First of all, Brett was never much of a “churchy” kind of guy. Oh, he’d go to church every once in awhile more to satisfy his wife than anything else. He definitely never sat down and studied the Bible.
He’s a spray pilot by profession. And if you’ve spent most of your life in the city, you may not have a full appreciation for the work of that particular kind of pilot. Those are the guys (mostly) who swoop down low over fields of wheat and other crops and, at just the right moment, release pesticides or fertilizers or whatever chemical might be necessary to protect the crop or make it realize its full potential for harvest. To be perfectly honest, I’ve always thought you had to be just a wee bit loony to be a spray pilot. It’s one thing to eyeball a field and decide how to get the plane over a particular area, but you can’t just limit your eyesight to that field. You have to be watching for trees or power lines that are often surrounding a field. In hot weather, the plane is bouncing around a lot so it isn’t the most comfortable ride. I have often sat in my car and watched a spray plane close in and move out; and, I must tell you, I have also known of catastrophic results when a pilot has lost control of his craft for even a split second.
So Brett is a spray pilot; owns his own business; and recently took his son into the business with him.
When Brett’s cancer was discovered five years ago, he wasn’t given much of a chance to live. Oh, the doctors seemed to know the right words to say so that he and his family had some hope to cling to. Before his fourth and most serious surgery, the doc sat down with him and said something like, “Brett, this is going to be just like a baseball game. But I can guarantee you that there will be no home runs (no instant cures). I’m pretty sure we can get you to first base and I’m hopeful we can get to second. But I want you to know that we may not get you home by the time the game is over. What we want to do is extend your life and give you a good quality of life.”
Outside the medical community, Brett’s friends were very supportive but none of us (and I have to include myself in that), none of us held out much hope that Brett would even make it through that surgery. He was so swollen that he looked, as Brett says, “like I was 10 months pregnant.”
The surgery lasted 17 hours. And, finally, the doctors just quit because they almost lost Brett on the operating table. They closed him up and then the tough part began because they deliberately kept him in a coma for 3 ½ weeks to help with the healing process. His wife Jane stayed by his side and various friends and family made the 800-mile trip to the hospital during that time to give their support.
After the doctors let him wake up, he says it took him 10 days to learn how to breathe on his own and another 10 days to learn how to walk again. After that he says, and I quote, “It took me another two weeks to get up the guts to get back on my Harley.”
Brett knew he was not cancer-free and he knew it would continue to grow in him.
Amazingly, a year ago (just one year after that difficult surgery), I was absolutely stunned to hear that Brett had gone with his buddies to the Colorado mountains to go elk hunting. They pitched camp at about 8500 feet and from there would drive up logging trails to where they wanted to begin their hunt and then they would walk. On the last day, Brett struck out on his own. And all by himself and carrying his gun, he walked six miles. Did he get his elk? “Nope. But I proved I could do it.”
And I think it’s also very important to note here that as Brett has faced each challenge in the past five years, some of his closest friends have been there – not just to give him support, but to pray with him, to pray for him, and to read and study the Bible with him.
When I called Brett this week, I told him the passage from Thessalonians that I intended to use in church this Sunday. I reminded him of the story of how Paul and Silas had brought the gospel to Thessalonica and had basically been run out of town on a rail. And I said that this particular reading was from a letter that Paul wrote some time later, probably a couple of years at least, to the church that was established as a result of that tumultuous visit. I told him that Paul was commending the Thessalonians because in the face of persecution and a pluralistic society, they had managed to not only stay faithful to Jesus Christ, but had grown the church, had spread the Good News, had allowed the Holy Spirit to invade their lives and had become such an example to all the believers in the region that everybody was talking about it. They had become famous because of their adherence to the faith. In this day and age, the Thessalonians would be sought after as guests on talk shows and they’d be the subject of books and movies.
And I said to Brett, “You know, we have a tendency to equate fame and fortune and power with success.” And he agreed. And I said, “And a lot of us spend a lot of time and effort seeking after those things – not necessarily for ourselves – I’m not suggesting greed here – but we seek those things because they give security for our families, give us comfortable places to live, allow us to contribute more money to the church.” And he agreed. And then I said, “So, Brett, I have to ask you. In light of what you have been through in the last five years, and in light of the fact that you have rallied but now are facing another setback and waiting for what’s bound to be another very serious surgery, and in light of the fact that you have, for the past five years, been living with dying, what is your view of success?
He didn’t hesitate. He said, “Peace in my heart.”
He said, “You know, I used to worry all the time. If we had a drought and the wheat was dying, I used to worry because there wasn’t any reason for the farmers to hire me to spray what wasn’t going to grow anyway. I would be in a panic and everyone around me would be in a panic. Five years ago, I would have been beside myself with worry.
“That’s the way this year was going. We had a drought. Nothing was growing. Nobody was hiring sprayers. I looked at options. I got a call from farmers in Iowa who had so many crops they were trying to get as many sprayers in there as possible. And five years ago, I probably would have been there.
“But I thought to myself, ‘you know, it doesn’t look good, but things never work out the way you think they’re going to.’ And what happened was, we ended up having one of the best years we’ve ever had. We got some rain just when we needed it...not a big area. Guys 30 miles in either direction were still in the middle of a drought. But around us the wheat just grew. And I got tired of working so much.
“What I’ve noticed about myself over the last two years in particular,” he said, “is that I’m willing to trust in God to take care of me and my family.”
He said, “You know I’ve had people come up to me and muttered something about, ‘Yeah, yeah, I don’t know about this God thing.’ And I don’t even hesitate to respond. I say, “You know, you will never, ever shake my faith in God. You will never convince me that Jesus isn’t there and that he’s working for you. I have felt his hand on my shoulder so much that I’ve turned around to look and there’s never anybody there. It bugged me. But what it also did was give me clarity of purpose.”
Brett also shared with me the other big change that has happened to him since he put his faith in Christ. “Man,” he said, “Injustice just bugs me. If something isn’t right, I’ll stand up and say so. And I don’t care if I’m standing there alone.”
By the time Paul and Silas got sent on their way, they apparently had imparted enough of the Good News that the Thessalonians knew, without doubt, that there was something far more important than going along with the crowd, than giving in to what the rest of the world expects of you. We don’t know exactly what they did. We don’t know if they set out a five-year plan or drew up an organization chart, or argued over a budget, or developed a media plan. Somehow I doubt that they did any of that.
What we do know is that somehow they lived their lives in a way that was so exemplary, that so exhibited the love that is found in Jesus Christ that the word spread. The secret of their success was found not in chasing fame or fortune or position, but in the “peace of mind,” that Brett says he has come to. The peace of mind that comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Brett says that people tell him that he’s a different person now than he was five years ago. “People tell me that I was wound too tight,” he says. “It seems important for them to tell me how surprised they are that I always take the time to sit and visit. But I wouldn’t do anything any differently. Relationships with people are so important.”
“Brett,” I said, as we closed our conversation, “Do you have anything you would like to share with your brothers and sisters in Christ in Waunakee?”
“Get to know God,” he said. “Jesus can deliver you from anything.”
That’s the secret to success. Amen.