Thankful Update and More!

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

You know, life really can come at you fast, as the saying goes. I look back over the past few months and very few things that I wanted to accomplish were accomplished. It reminds me of the verse in James, where he tells us that we need to approach life with the perspective that God is in charge. It’s so easy to think we are in control, isn’t it, especially when things are sailing along smoothly.

I know folks who have the next five or so years of their life mapped out. In fact, many have five-year plans, ten-year plans and so on. But the truth is that we are not the creator or sustainer of our life. Certainly, we can make plans but we need to be flexible because the Lord’s plans supersede ours.

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that (James 4:15 KJV)

So in looking back, while I’m disappointed that I haven’t done the things I had mapped out, it is very clear to me that God had His plans and they took up my time. I wanted to get back to uploading sermon audio messages, writing more blogs on a variety of topics, but that wasn’t to be. Instead, we were dealing with my wife’s potential cancer, the eventual mastectomy, first stage of reconstruction, and her ongoing recovery.

Actually, I’m fairly amazed at how the Lord worked in this. In fact, in some ways, I’m astounded at how well the Lord came through. Gee, it’s almost as if He not only knows, but deeply cares about us and our plight (smiling).

Because everyone is born with a sin nature (in sin), our physical bodies suffer the consequences of it. All of us are born with DNA that is corrupted; genes that don’t work the way God intended. What we eat and how we live can break or make those situations worse. I’ve dealt in plenty of articles about how most of us don’t pay any attention to how and what we eat or drink. We don’t realize the terrible things the highly processed foods do to our bodies. We just eat and drink away and wonder why we don’t feel great most of the time.

The longer we eat and drink bad things, the more havoc it plays on our bodies. Eventually, things start happening that can bring about a myriad of diseased including the dreaded “cancers.”

As those who’ve been reading this blog for a while know, my wife had a large mass in her right breast. Unfortunately, it was emanating from her areola area, but was still contained within the ducts. Though it was not yet cancer, if left alone untreated, it would have burst out of the ducts and turned into cancer, working its way through her body.

Two top-quality surgeons both concurred that removal was the best option. If it was removed in total, the mass would not turn into cancer and would not affect any other portion of her body. This was the route we opted for and the process of reconstruction is now underway.

We are thankful that it was caught early like this. We are also thankful that the pathology report came back and showed no invasive cancer outside of that area. It was all caught, which means no further treatment would be needed (radiation, chemo, etc.). Quite frankly, I doubt that my wife would’ve wanted to undergo that treatment and who can blame her? There are no guarantees and quite often, chemo and radiation don’t work or the positive results are very short-lived.

So we are thankful that God has blessed us with the results He has given. He is in charge. Sure, it would be nice not to have had to deal with it at all, wouldn’t it? We all like the idea of healing. Who wouldn’t? But God is not obligated to heal us and in fact, everyone He ever healed or raised from the dead in the past, eventually died anyway. Why? Because of that sin nature we all possess.

I recall when my sister died. Oh, that week before as she lay in the hospital in a coma was so hard! I recall stopping strangers in the hospital and pouring my heart out to them asking them to join me in prayer for her full recovery. No one said “Uh…dude, you’re crazy.” They all willingly prayed and joined me right there. We did this for just over a week. But God basically said “No” to that request. It was not part of His plan for my sister. She slipped away to Him one night not long after we left for that day. She is now with Him, exulting in the fact that she no longer has a sin nature and awaits the resurrection of her physical, glorified body.

We talked with a gentleman on our road yesterday. He talked about the loss of the love of his life, to whom he had been happily married for 46 years and how he still misses her. Understandable as I still miss my sister and other loved ones who have left this dimension.

God is great….all the time. He would be great if my wife (or I) had cancer. He would be great if He chose to heal. He would be great if in His wisdom He said “No” to healing. The ultimate healing will come to all who trust Jesus and receive eternal life through Him and it will come in the next life after this one is over. We have the “deposit” of the Holy Spirit within us as our guarantee of that.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

I hope and pray that as you gather around the Thanksgiving table in a few days, you will be mindful of just how much as a Christian you have to be thankful for, that the world itself does not know or understand. We can hope and pray that many more will wake to the fact of salvation in Christ, but as Christians, we must come to humbly learn and accept that God is the Captain of our fate. He is not idle. He doesn’t not hear us or care about our problems. We cannot thoroughly understand how much He does care.

I am becoming more and more convinced that after God, family is extremely important. After all, God created the family as an institution. He blessed it. So should we. We should be grateful for the members of our family. This of course also extends to our family of brothers and sisters in the Lord.

I am amazed at how many people came through for my wife and I in this time of need. It boggles my mind and this is at least one reason sometimes why things like this come into our lives. It gives people – family and other Christians – the opportunity to step up and minister to those of us in need. It is extremely important and God wants and expects us to do for one another.

God is love (among other things), and this is an attribute which we must also exercise to family, Christian brothers and sisters and the world at large. It is how Christianity it evidenced.

As you gather together this Thursday, approach this time with tremendous thanksgiving for the many blessings that God has given. If you can think of nothing else, consider the supreme act of love by which Jesus – God the Son – chose to “lower” Himself to take on the form of a servant, live a perfectly sinless life, die a terribly brutal death, and rise again from the grave, all because of love for you and me.

We must allow God’s love to remake us, to bring us to a point where we willingly give of ourselves so that His love may be seen by others in and through us.

My wife and I have a great deal to be thankful for these days. How about you?

I’ll be back next time with a review of a DVD that deals with the Book of Mormon. Join me then!

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective