Forsaken (2024 Key Verse)

Found guilty as a criminal. 2023 began 2 weeks after 6 armed FBI agents came to my house unannounced at 7 am and hand-cuffed and arrested me. I was indicted and charged with serious offences of defrauding the U.S. government and committing health care fraud for an online job I did for 5 months in 2019. I reviewed charts of patients who had cancer or a family history of cancer to decide whether or not to order a genetic test. Unbeknownst to me, there was a fraud that involved labs and multiple marketing companies that targeted medicare recipients. I knew of this only after my defense attorneys informed me. I was paid $26,800 while the lab billed Medicare for 9 million according to my indictment. In Aug I went to trial. After 3 emotionally exhausting weeks 12 jurors found me guilty on one charge. On Feb 29, 2024, I will be sentenced and will receive prison time of up to 5 years and fines and forfeitures.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 2023 was the worst year of my almost 7 decades of life. It never crossed my mind that I would ever be arrested, hand-cuffed, put in leg shackles, charged with serious offenses, found guilty as a criminal and sent to jail. It was not only emotionally draining, but in legal fees it financially depleted our savings significantly, which Christy painstakingly saved and invested for over 4 decades of our marriage. With my sentencing there will be further costs in fees, fines, forfeitures and restitution. But...

2023 was strangely also the best of times. Can anything good or positive come from a downright depressing and devastating year that culminated in my guilty verdict in 2023? Here are some thoughts:

• At West Loop, I preached through the entire book of Acts, starting in 2022 and ending in July 2023 with Paul's 5 successive trials, being lost at sea, a shipwreck, being bitten by a poisonous snake, and imprisonment in Rome. 2 weeks later my trial began on Aug 15 which happens to be our 42nd wedding anniversary and ended on Aug 31. Acts 20:24 has been my KV for the rest of my life: "I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the good news (gospel) of God's grace." This is Paul's expression of his prodigal profligate life, which must also be my attitude, purpose, motivation and trajectory of life when I go to prison.
• After my guilty verdict I read through Job, Ecceliastes and Psalms. I never thought I would cherish the Wisdom books, because of my heady, cerebral, non-emotional disposition. But it has become my primary Bible reading for prayer, memorization, strength, comfort and inspiration. In Job 1:9 Satan says, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" meaning that Job fears God only because God has blessed him. I need to ask myself, "Do I fear and serve God for God alone, or to receive blessings, or for a mixture of both?" So far I've been blessed beyond measure in every possible way. Will I fear and serve God in 2024 when my life situation drastically changes?
• After my guilty verdict I preached only on Psalms and will continue to do so:
• (Psalm 1-2) Happiness . To be happy and blessed meditate on Scripture day and night (Ps 1:2).
  
• (Psalm 73) Find Your Faltering Faith by not envying the rich and famous (Ps 73:2-3).
  
• (Psalm 38) An Unrelenting Undertow of Sorrow, mourning (Ps 38:6) and anguish (Ps 38:8). "How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart" (Ps 13:2).
  
• (Psalm 51) I Know My Sin. Live with ongoing confession and repentance (Ps 51:3-4).
  
• (Psalm 22) Forsaken. Jesus' godforsakeness is able to save everyone and anyone, even I.
  

Thanksgiving:

• Thank God for my 8th grandchild, Elijah Athanasius, born on Aug 12, 3 days before my trial.
• Thank God for Christy who suffered in sadness, and sorrow, and in silence together with me throughout 2023. Thank God for the love of my 4 kids and grandkids.
• Thank God for those who visited us during my trial in Nashville--John Peace, Rhoel, Sam and Grace Sun, Daniel and Sarah Sohn, Abraham Lincoln, and for Teddy, Liz and Agi who stayed with us.
• Thank God for helping me to know Jesus as a man of sorrow (Isa 53:3), by a daily unrelenting undertow of sorrow and sadness for perhaps the first time in my life.
• Thank God for prompting me to take very seriously the 7 deadly sins as a result of my trial:
1. Lust. Seriously? I'm almost 70.
2. Gluttony. Thank God that I lost 15 lbs because of the stress of the trial.
3. Envy. I repent for comparing myself with the rich and famous.
4. Greed. Losing over a million dollars twice in a lifetime is very very good for my soul.
5. Sloth. Don't waste time binge watching and internet surfing.
6. Wrath. Feeling continually sad and sorrowful helps dampen my anger over minor irritations.
7. Pride. The shame of a guilty verdict and prison humbles me and puts me in the place that I should always be in.
• I've said before that I don’t need a title to serve God. Now I thank God that I also don’t need to be a free man to serve God.
• Thank God for the leadership of our WL elders, who took stewardship over the church.
• Thank God for John and Maria who have made our UIC BH a very nice and hospitable place.
• Thank God for the many letters written to the judge on my behalf attesting to my character and integrity and requesting leniency during sentencing. This was my biggest unexpected pleasant surprise. Letters were written by: Jenny and signed by all 10 West Loop elders and their spouses, and personal letters by 2 Chicago UBF elders Dr. Augustine Sohn and David Choi, Teddy, Bob Henkins, Taniesha, Maria Peace, Jennifer Rabchuk, Rhoel, Henry and Susan, Sarah Mina Altobar of the Philippines, Dr. Mark Yoon, Dr. John Armstrong and 2 long standing friends from Malaysia and Singapore: Pathma, my medical school classmate and a high court judge whom I've known for 65 years since childhood. These letters touched my heart deeply. I thought to myself, "Wow, I guess people do love me!" and "These would be perfect eulogies for my funeral!" This is surely God's marvelous grace to me.
• Thank God for Christy's cooking because it will be far better than what I'll be eating at my next place of stay.

2024 key verse (KV).

• In 2022 my KV was "Be joyful always" (1 Th 5:16) and I was hand-cuffed, arrested and charged as a criminal.
• In 2023 my KV was "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Heb 13:5; Dt 31:6) and I was found guilty and became a convicted criminal.
• Likely, my 2024 KV is "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps 22:1). This may be a very strange KV, but it is strangely a very encouraging and uniquely comforting verse for me. Why? Jesus died alone so that I'll never be alone. Jesus was forsaken so I can be forgiven. Jesus died horribly, so I can live courageously …. anywhere.

One Word: Because Jesus was forsaken, I will never be forsaken.

“My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Ps 22:1). . . . When Jesus spoke these words on the cross, total aloneness and full acceptance touched each other. In that moment of complete emptiness all was fulfilled. In that hour of darkness new light was seen. While death was witnessed, life was affirmed. Where God’s absence was most loudly expressed, God’s presence was most profoundly revealed. When God, through the humanity of Jesus, freely chose to share our own most painful experience of divine absence, God became most present to us. It is into this mystery that we enter when we pray.

God’s Absence and Presence

God is “beyond,” beyond our heart and mind, beyond our feelings and thoughts, beyond our expectations and desires, and beyond all the events and experiences that make up our life. Still God is in the center of all of it. Here we touch the heart of prayer, since here it becomes manifest that in prayer the distinction between God’s presence and God’s absence no longer really distinguishes. In prayer, God’s presence is never separated from God’s absence and God’s absence is never separated from God’s presence. God’s presence is so much beyond the human experience of being together that it quite easily is perceived as absence. God’s absence, on the other hand, is often so deeply felt that it leads to a new sense of God’s presence. . . .