As word of my cancer has spread, many people have come up to me and expressed their loving concern. Several have told me that they are praying for me and asked me how I was doing and how I was feeling. This has been especially true at Stonecroft Ministries where the staff takes very seriously the ministry of prayer. I am extremely thankful for your concern and the tremendous missionary family I have the privilege of serving.
Physically, I am feeling better than I have felt in a long time because I have lost some weight. My prostate cancer was not diagnosed because of the presence of symptoms. Instead, my annual blood work indicated an increasing P.S.A. level that led to a biopsy. Actually, it is very serious if you have symptoms with prostate cancer, as symptoms are an indication that it hasn’t been detected early enough. Men, please have your annual blood work done!
As I write this, it is exactly one month until my surgery on Dec. 3. I am doing well emotionally and spiritually now but it is conceivable that as surgery draws near I won’t be doing as well. I can imagine that the closer the day is, the higher my anxiety will be. Could it be that the day of the surgery, as I pull into a parking space at the hospital, my hands will freeze fast to the steering wheel? Will they drag me kicking and screaming into surgery with me only becoming calm when they give me the “La-La” juice?
The possibility of my becoming a basket case brings me to another way that God is strengthening me. God has strengthened me through the knowledge that no matter how weak I become God will not forsake me. His staying with me through any trial has nothing to do with my strength but everything to do with His strength and the completeness of what He has done for me in Christ. Are not the fantastic (virtually unbelievable, but completely believable because they are from God) promises of Romans 8:31-39Romans 8:31-39
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God [is] for us, who [is] against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?
33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth;
34 who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
perfectly appropriate for minor trials such as mine as well as the severest trial?
I can be weak, fearful, full of anxiety about the surgery or its outcome without ever worrying that my weakness will separate me from God. He has promised me it will not!
Of course, it would not be good public relations for the Executive Director of Village Missions to be screaming as he enters the hospital! Neither is it good for a Village Missionary to scream in panic when encountering a trial! Unfortunately, many of us maintain the appearance of strength on the outside while inwardly we are screaming. After all, we have to maintain the image of the pastor or the director who is in control! That is nothing but hypocrisy and such false spirituality does no one any good. Yet total weakness in the face of adversity would undercut everything we have ever preached about the sufficiency of Christ! It would certainly undercut everything I have written in this blog thus far about my cancer.
What is the answer? In my weakness, knowing that God has not forsaken me, I must cling to God’s strength. It is good to come to the end of our resources and it is even necessary to come to the end of our resources so that we turn to the strength of God. We must turn to God in the midst of our anxiety and panic.
Paul identifies and illustrates what we must do in 2 Corinthians 12:7-102 Corinthians 12:7-10
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
7 And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch.
8 Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
. He came to God in his weakness caused by the “thorn in the flesh.” God kept reminding Paul of the sufficiency of His grace. He informed Paul of a spiritual growth process in which power was “perfected in weakness.” I think the process was a weaning away in Paul his reliance on his own strength in favor of a developing reliance on God’s strength. He came to the place where he even relished weakness because of the opportunity for the display of God’s power in him.
I have entered the school of weakness. It has a curriculum that can be learned in no other way. I am strengthened in this trial by knowing of an unending love that does its greatest work of grace in the times I am the weakest. How am I doing? I am actually doing better by having this opportunity for the display of God’s power than I was doing before I had cancer.
May we embrace every trial we encounter as part of the rich and thoughtful design of God to display His power in our life!
