Jack Hayford - Hope When You Need It Most

2001, 2007, 2014 Jack Hayford

Published by Chosen Books
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
chosenbooks.com

Chosen Books is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Chosen edition published 2014

ISBN 978-1-4412-6823-5

Previously published by Regal Books

Originally published as How to Live Through a Bad Day, published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. in 2001.

Ebook edition originally created 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All personal stories are true. Except for self and family references by the author, names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Hopeless days are commonplace in our world.

That isnt a cynical observation. Its an honest one. And in many regards, the same kinds of things that lead to hopeless days for people like you and me were experienced and overcome on one very big day, a long time ago.

This is a small book about that big day. Moreover, it is about an even larger wonderthe miracle power in the words spoken on that day, sometimes called the Seven Last Words of Christ, by the One who turned the ultimate bad day into one that history now calls good. We still call it that today. Every year, when the calendar rolls around at springtime, we arrive there two days before Easter: Its called Good Friday.

There are many reasons Good Friday is called good, but they are not related to our usual human notions of nice, happy or comfortable. Rather, the good in that day is that it was the day Jesus, who had arrived in Bethlehem years before, surrendered to death on a Cross in Jerusalem.

The good is in the Good Shepherd, laying His life down for His sheep.

The good is also in the mystery revealed in the fact that, at the price of Jesus lifeblood, forgiveness for my sin and yours is now a God-given provision offering eternal hope and promise.

Although there are many good reasons why we call that Friday good, it was in reality a very bad day.

It was a day filled with many of the same things that make our days bad at timesbad things that sap the life out of living and wring hope out of our hearts.

It was a day that involved being bitterly betrayed;

It was a day of being beaten brutallyabused hatefully, and of blood and tears;

It was a day of being rejected, of stark loneliness, of friends running away and of enemies dealing violence.

Its the bad day called Good Friday because Jesus did things that day that have resulted in an unshakable source of hopehope that saves us, hope that will keep us, hope that will accompany us and hope that will carry us through.

I have written this book because I want to relay something that I learned about hope from Jesus day of dismal darkness, thunder and earthquakethat God-forsaken day in which God Himself was killed as He submitted Himself to the hands of His own creatures. I learned how that day, beyond all others (and yet so much like a thousand of our own in certain ways), holds the keys that open the doorways to hope. And how that bad day in Jesus life we call good is the reason we will always have hope when we need it most.

Before I share what I have learned from the circumstances of Good Friday and the Seven Last Words Jesus spoke in response, Im going to bare my soul and tell you about the morning of an awful day in my life, a day of utter hopelessness brought about by circumstance and enunciated by a biting voice that sought to tear hope away. I will share with you, dear reader, how my experience that day prompted me to call on the One Who is able to teach us the words that can turn a hopeless day into a transformed one.

Is it possible for you to find hope when you need it most? Absolutely, and not because of anything you can do, but because of what Jesus has already done.

It was pitch black in the bedroom as I opened my eyes on the morning of October 24, 2003. The digital clock on my bedside table registered precisely five oclock, a fact confirmed by the chimes I heard from the grandfather clock down the hall in our living room. It had now been 33 hours since Scott had collapsed. It happened instantlyhis skull flooded internally with blood as a congenital aneurysm burst and the hemorrhage began to crush his brain stem toward lifelessness. By most evidences he was gone from that moment, though doctors worked valiantly on his behalf, and our church prayed passionately for their pastor.

Scott Bauer, Annas and my son-in-law, had married our daughter Rebecca over 25 years earlier and had assumed my role as pastor of The Church On The Way, succeeding me after my 30 years as senior pastor there. This decision had not been choreographed by usneither Scott nor I had ever discussed his following me as pastor, even though his 11 years as my associate would have seemed to suggest it. But our church, while led by the pastor, is governed by godly eldership. Few can imagine my joy when they asked Scott to serve them as God called me away to found The Kings Seminarya new center for training pastoral leaders for the twenty-first century. The church had continued to thrive under the leadership of Scott Bauera highly gifted, servant-hearted and Spirit-anointed shepherd of souls. That had suddenly changed 33 hours earlier.

And now, that morning of October 24, 2003exactly four years to the day of his being installed as pastorat just 49 years of age, the only things keeping Scotts heart functioning were devices scheduled to be unplugged at two oclock that afternoon. Every vestige of sustainable life was gone. Scott, the man who was my son according to the common faith in Christ, the husband of our oldest child and the father of three of our grandchildrenScott, the pastor upon whom I, along with the elders of our church, earlier had laid hands as he became senior pastorwas gone! The final gesture indicating closure remained until that afternoon, when his parents would arrive from Texas; but in fact, Scott had been declared brain-dead within hours of his collapse.

That had happened Wednesday night. Scott had stepped forward to dismiss the mid-week service, which earlier had been graced by a guest speaker, and then paused for a momentseemingly bewildered after he had asked the congregation to stand for the benediction. He turned to Dr. Jack Hamilton, one of our pastoral team, and said, Jack, come and dismiss the service. Then he stepped down the platform stairs in what seemed a natural way, putting his hand to his head as he walked toward his wife who was seated in the front row. But he didnt make it that far. Yet because the congregation was already standing and at prayer, virtually no one saw their beloved pastor as he was assistedcarried from the room by his son, Kyle, and two other men. Though a few minutes later, a brief consciousness was regained, and notwithstanding that almost immediate attention was provided by the paramedics, a precious son and beloved husband and father had lapsed into an unresponsive abyss.