Thankful for These . . .
Perhaps I cannot stand on the shoulders of great saints, but I do sit on them. Take John Newton, the Anglican pastor from the 1700s, who gave us “Amazing Grace.” In his book Newton on the Christian Life, Tony Reinke reflected on how an unconsumed burning bush was one of Newton’s favorite metaphors for Christians undergoing severe suffering. He wrote, “Some Christians are called to endure a disproportionate amount of suffering. Such Christians are a spectacle of grace to the church, like flaming bushes unconsumed, and cause us to ask, like Moses, ‘Why is this bush not burned?’ The strength and stability of these believers can be explained only by the miracle of God’s sustaining grace.”1
After nearly fifty years of quadriplegia, and battles with cancer and chronic pain, I can say I’m a “bush not burned.” I thank God and His Word for that, but also stalwart saints, like John Newton, William Law, Bishop J. C. Ryle, Jeremiah Burroughs, and contemporaries John Piper, J. I. Packer, Elisabeth Elliot, and more. Their tough take on suffering has helped deepen my walk with Christ and given me something rich to pass on to you.
Larry Libby, my longtime friend and fellow wordsmith, is deserving of special thanks. In A Spectacle of Glory, as well as in other books, Larry has taken my rough-and-tumble words, turned them this way and that, and polished them into paragraphs that shine with truth and beauty. If anyone walks away from this book having been drawn closer to God and His Word, I have you to thank, Larry.
I’m grateful to Wolgemuth & Associates for their guidance. Robert Wolgemuth is a longtime friend with whom I have harmonized on many a hymn and collaborated on almost as many books (with his precious wife, Bobbie, who passed away from cancer). Robert and his new wife, Nancy DeMoss, have prayed me through A Spectacle of Glory, and their intercessions mean the world. I’m also indebted to Andrew Wolgemuth, who has been my champion on this devotional book and others—God bless you, Andrew, for opening doors for me to wheel through.
I take a bow to my publishing family at Zondervan. They put their full weight behind A Spectacle of Glory. From John Sloan to Alicia Kasen, thank you, friends, for extending the HarperCollins platform to me so I can share my heart with a new generation of readers. I feel especially close to Dirk Buursma, who did the hard work of copy editing, refining every page and paragraph. What’s so special about that? Dirk is the proud father of Paul Buursma, the young “bush not burned” to whom I dedicated this book.
There were plenty of times at Joni and Friends when I had to push away from the computer and lie down to give my body a break. It takes a team of people to not only help me research and type, but to get me sitting up in my wheelchair and moving forward. My coworkers Francie Lorey, Lisa Miehl, Deborah Gandi, Rainey Floreen, Kathren Martinez, and Tatiana Barrera deserve a round of applause for the many times they lent a hand.
Finally, special thanks to Ken Tada, who has faithfully walked beside my wheelchair for decades, seeing me through every hurt and happiness. Ken and I pray that the insights in this book will lift your spirits to new heights of confidence in our wonderfully sovereign God. So bless you for joining me on this day-by-day journey—may it help you be a flaming bush unconsumed, causing others to ask, like Moses, “Why is this bush not burned?” It will be your chance to shine . . . to be a spectacle of glory.
1. Tony Reinke, Newton on the Christian Life: To Live is Christ (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2015), 159.