What would motivate a flaky character like me to be up in the middle of the night to provide unspeakably personal caregiving services to my helpless wife night after night, year after year, without the slightest sense of resentment or bitterness?

Why the heck am I doing this? Why wouldn’t I just “farm the job out” and send her to an institution, and go off on a Mediterranean cruise?

The old Don would have for sure.

I’m no hero, believe me. My track record over the years has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that I am more likely to run and hide from anything that is likely to restrict my personal freedom or require a serious commitment.

I like to keep my options open. 

So naturally, I remain completely perplexed by how God has managed to craft a “silk purse” out of this “sow’s ear” of a man and made me into an above average caregiver to my dementia-stricken wife of 34 years.

I didn’t do this, so please don’t take a word of this as braggartly. I’m just along for the ride.

Now, full disclosure. I have been aware for several years that God has been meticulously tearing me down and putting up an authentic human being — something that must be an often-disappointing enterprise for Him — I am not a particularly promising subject.

God has been refining me in the humbling “crucible” of elder caregiving for a reason. I am finally getting a clue of what love REALLY is, and it has nothing to do with candlelight and roses.

I continue to be blown away by the gradual, imperceptible transformation.

The other day I was studying 1 Corinthians 9 when an insight came bursting through. The greatest force/power in the universe is not anything physical. It is invisible, it is everywhere, it is love.

The late Bible commentator Bill MacDonald wrote:

“Indwelt by the Spirit of God, the Christian is raised to a new level of behavior. He now desires to live a holy life, not out of fear of punishment for having broken the law, but out of love for Christ, who died for Him and rose again. Under law the motive was fear, but under grace the motive is love. Love is a far higher motive than fear. Men will do out of love what they would never do from terror.

“(Scottish theologian William) Arnot says:

“God’s method of binding souls to obedience is similar to His method of keeping the planets in their orbits — that is, by flinging them out free. You see no chain keeping back these shining worlds to prevent them from bursting away from their center. They are held in the grip of an invisible principle … And it by the invisible bond of love — love to the Lord who bought them — that ransomed men are constrained to live soberly and righteously, and godly.”

Bingo! Since time began, men have tried to approach God by “working” to please Him, often through attempting to live up to “the rules” (referred to in the Bible as the Law) and the results have universally fallen flat.

Paul wrote in Romans 3:19-21:

“Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law none of mankind will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes knowledge of sin.”

Now while the context of this verse is salvation, it is just as applicable to service as well. The Law was never meant to save us, but to show us our sinfulness and therefore, our need for a righteous Savior.

The flaw in law-keeping is that it is merit-based and therefore doomed by its own dependence on natural human “ability.”

But our human ability to please God on our own was forfeited by our forebears, Adam and Eve, and we inherited their fallen condition full-strength. Another way of approach to God is required and that’s where the Gospel comes in. 

And this teaches me something about caregiving. If I had attempted to be a caregiver to my wife out of obligation, responsibility or to earn something with God, I would have fallen flat. The merit/demerit-based system always does.

Instead, I surrendered to Him and His Sovereign wisdom, depended on His strength, and the rest is history (i.e. His Story, not mine).

How About You?

Are you facing something above your “pay grade?” Afraid you’ve “bitten off more than you can chew?”

Good. Where you end, God begins.  

Paul reminds us in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Ready to see what God can do with any wobbly believer who yields his life to Him?