Jesus Sees The Saint In The Sinner’s Smoke

Jesus Sees The Saint In The Sinner’s Smoke

I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway! I will lead them. I will comfort those who mourn. Isaiah 57:18

As I entered the nursing home, nurses scurried past me, waving charts in front of their faces as if trying to shoo away a gnat.

The head nurse saw me and pointed toward the back of the complex. “Your new patient is in the ‘break room,’ getting some ‘fresh air.’”

“Uh, okay. Thanks,” I said as I headed toward the back door.

Before I got there, I could smell the smoke, and I knew I’d find Ronny. He had terminal, end-stage metastatic lung cancer. Every treatment had failed, and the nursing notes told the story of why.

While admitted to the hospital, Ronny would leave “against medical advice” a few times a day to “get some fresh air.” When the nurses checked on him, they’d find him outside smoking. With his three-pack-a-day habit, which he’d had for more than forty years, I was surprised that he’d made it to the age of sixty.

When I caught up with him at the end of the maintenance hallway—or the “break room,” as the nurses had begun calling it—the haze was just lifting from around his face. He smiled a toothless grin at me.

“Look, Ronny, I promised you we’d do everything we could to help you, but the cows are out of the barn. Your time on earth is coming to a close.”

“I know,” he said, snuffing out a cigarette in one of the cereal bowls he used as an ash tray.

“I have an important question,” I said. “It may be the most important question I could ask: Do you know where you’re going when you leave this earth?”

“Despite all I’ve done to myself and others and despite all the misery I’ve caused, I know that one day soon I’ll be with Jesus,” he said.

“We may not have anything else to help your cancer, Ronny, but I can promise you that Jesus is the best medicine, by far.”

Today’s verse seems quite appropriate for Ronny. It’s one we should all know because it’s a wonderful promise to sinners everywhere—including me.

TODAY’S RX

No matter what you’ve done, you can’t hide behind a smoke screen. Jesus knows everything, and he covers it all with his blood.

Thank you for not giving up on me, Lord, when I continually disobey you. Help me to work past my bad habits and seek you for strength whenever temptation arises. Your promises are healing to my soul.