A VERY HAPPY COMPLICATION

This is about what I said in that post about my cancer being the "discipline and chastening of the Lord" (July 3). It has not been uncommon in the years I have pastored a church to be asked by some significantly troubled and spiritually sensitive soul if I thought that this pain and suffering was "the discipline of the Lord." It's usually worded as the question: "Am I being punished for some sin I have committed?"

My consistent practice, which I have never regretted, is to say something like this. "It would be unwise to dismiss the question without first giving it some careful attention. It just might be that some sin you have committed, or some habit of disobedience that you haven't addressed successfully, or addressed at all, is a part of God's purpose in bringing this pain and suffering into your life. But if you DO discern that God is drawing your attention to some sort of disobedience that you need to correct, it would be oversimplifying this difficult part of the story to think that THAT particular sin, or sinfulness, is all there is to it."

In the discussion that follows, the words of Jesus about the man born blind (John 9:3) sometimes come up. Logically so, for it seems like this is exactly the question that Jesus is answering, and he is answering the question with a "No." It DOES seem that the Lord is saying that the blind man's suffering has nothing at all to do with any sin, or all of the sins, that the man (or his parents!) had ever committed. Without thinking that I am daring to contradict what the Lord is saying, I still maintain that to use these words of Jesus as the entire answer to that senstive soul's specific question is to oversimplify a complicated matter.

Every case of significant human trouble is complicated, but not all the complications are bad ones. One really positive complication is that any one thing suffered by any one human being (You, for example) always has an impact on other people, especially the people who love that person (unless, of course, the person doing the suffering is on a desert island at the time, and never does make it off the island.)

If we believe that the details of God's sovereign purposes for each of his people are always his sovereign kindness and his sovereign wisdom towards them, that is, if we think biblically about the nature of God and the nature of our experiences, then this complication IS a happy one. A very happy one, especially regarding those loved ones that we deeply love. Not only is God working all things together for good for us, just because we ARE people who love him and who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28), but the things that God is bringing into our lives are always ALSO things that God is bringing into the lives of those who love us and who are suffering along with us. Therefore, our own hard and painful "things" are being "worked" by God not only for our good but also for the good of every one of those loved ones of ours who also love God and are called according to his purpose.

What this amounts to is that the Bible teaches us to believe that God's purposes are embedded in, and woven all through, the details of every one of our trials and tribulations, and calls us to understand that some of the purposes of God that are directly connected to our suffering have at least as much to do with our loved ones as they have to do with us, and in some cases, possibly more.

I think it's really worth noticing here that the Apostle Paul's very next words (Romans 8:29) explain that it is God's plan, and always has been God's plan, to conform every one of his people to the image of Christ. I think we should think of that as Paul's general summary of "the good" to which God is working all of "our things" out. This thought should be an encouragement to every suffering believer in Christ -- that your experience is accomplishing more good than just the good it is accomplishing in you. That some of the good that your experiences of pain and suffering are accomplishing is specifically God's "good and acceptable and perfect" gift to some of the people you love. I think it is a part of why it would always be oversimplifying the complicated story of your life to believe that your pain and suffering IS totally about the sin, or the continuing moral battles, in your life. Actually, nothing that God brings into your life is only about you.

I once stood beside the hospital bed of a young man (An enthusiastic servant of Christ employed in full-time ministry) who had very recently been suddenly and mysteriously struck down with a very serious medical problem. I couldn't help noticing that his mother was standing on the other side of the bed. I began to assure him that the "good and acceptable and perfect" purposes of God were embedded in, and woven all through, this experience, but I was passionately interrupted by his mother. As I remember it, although it was many years ago now, she pointed her finger right at me and said with great conviction, "Don't you dare suggest that what has happened to my son is because of something bad he has done!" A lively dialogue ensued, for at the time I also was a very young man. Her son listened intently, watching the whole thing the way you watch a tennis game. (It might have been the highlight of his day.)

Later, when his mother had left the room, he smiled at me and said, "My mother doesn't really know me very well." And then he told me that he had already figured out a direct connection between the nature of his suffering and a certain sin that he had not yet succeeded in overcoming. If he hadn't already figured that out, I would have told him to give some thought to the possibility of some such connection, and I would have encouraged him to go on believing that there WAS at least some sort of connection between this calamity and his sins and his sinfulness, even if he wasn't ever able to identify it.

To this very point, the author of the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews (in 12:4-7) quotes from the 3rd chapter of the Old Testament Book of Proverbs (Verses 11,12.)

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

And this, I believe, explains in part why I have cancer. I am aware enough of "the weakness of my flesh" to assume that, to some degree, my present and future pain and suffering is the Lord's chastening. The Father is teaching his always-glad-to-be-adopted but often-slow-to-obey child to obey him more promptly and more immediately. At any rate, my pain and suffering is always his discipline. The word MEANS "child-training."

By the way, right now this six-week Waiting Period is going pretty well. This past Monday, the first Monday of my waiting, I woke up very early feeling really very healthy. Way more healthy than I actually am, I think. It only lasted that day, but feeling good always does feel good under any circumstances. My warmest and fondest thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. It does seem to me that God in his sovereign kindness and wisdom is answering your prayers most wonderfully -- and I am thankful to him and to you.

JUST WAITING

Yesterday I visited the Tanning Salon for my 28th session and swallowed my 336th pink pill. With some sense of ceremony, I then stood in the reception area with my girls, mallet in hand, and gave the London Regional Cancer Program's Radiation Gong an enthusiastic whack, signifying to the other cancer patients and their relatives that, for me and for now, that whole business is now over with. A polite round of applause followed, as usual.


Thus endeth my six weeks of Chemo-and-Radiation Therapy, but apparently it doesn't end the radiation. Apparently, just as the roast keeps cooking for a while after it's taken out of the oven, so the tumour keeps glowing for a while after the tanning sessions are over. For two weeks, in fact. (Who would have guessed?)


And now a question comes to mind: "So?" The answer is, "I wait." I wait for two weeks for the radiation of my nether parts to cease, which takes me to the end of July. And then I wait for a few weeks more. In fact, now that Round One in this fight for my life is concluded, I begin Round Two: another six week (or so) Waiting Period in which the battlefield quiets down enough that the results of my 28 and my 336 can be discerned, by means of an MRI (to see what's become of the tumour) and a CT-Scan (to see what my liver has been doing for my summer vacation.) Following these two Dates with Destiny, Deb and I will have a chat with the oncologist to hear what he suggests is next. The obvious happy possibility (I mean, besides a miracle of God's healing, which I continue to pray for, and deeply appreciate your prayers for) is a surgery in September to remove the shrivelled-up tumour. And at the other end of the list of possibilities: a new regime of chemotherapy sessions, either designed to try again to shrink the tumour, or as palliative chemotherapy (An intimidating term!), if it seems that there's not much else that can be done.


So that's what's up for me for the next six-or-so weeks. I wait. I just wait in regard to the enormous uncertainty on my horizon. Just as do many people I know, because this is what life is like --- and because we all have our stuff. Obviously, we don't all have cancer or other life-and-death health problems, but we all have stuff. Some of this stuff isn't so much personal as interpersonal: a marital challenge, or a child-raising problem, or a difficulty with a friend, or a "work related" or "school related" burden. In the hope of being helpful to my fellow "stuff-bearers," I am glad to share what I have learned about waiting (with thanks to Clint Eastwood and the other makers of a 1960's film phenomenon called "spaghetti westerns.")


What's GOOD about waiting.
"Just waiting" is good when it builds character. It can develop patience and perseverance and, if we are waiting on God, it builds faith and hope, all of which are good and beautiful things.


What's BAD about waiting.
"Just waiting" turns bad when I start considering my perspective and my wisdom and my sense of timing and my opinion on what's best for me to be superior to God's. Who am I to say that a certain period of "just waiting" is going on too long? With a mistaken view of myself and of God, my confidence in God erodes, and so does my hope. Functionally, I become more and more a man "without hope and without God in the world." A very bad thing.


What's UGLY about waiting.
"Just waiting" turns ugly when my disapproval or discontentment with God's perspective and wisdom and sense of timing begins to embitter me, especially when it embitters me toward God. At that point, my doubts and unbelief begin to define me, and if "a gentle and quiet spirit is precious in the sight of the Lord," than surely an opposite state of mind and an opposite condition of heart is ugly to God. (Yikes!)


So here I wait. For about a month. And while the radiation continues to do its work on my lower end, I work on my heart and mind, believing that "just waiting" can be a good thing, and seeking to ensure that it is. Coming off of a month and a half experience in which I repeatedly quoted Psalm 16 to myself, I love and am helped by that psalm too much to let go of it now. But I am now taking on another favourite psalm. Over the years of trying to be a helpful pastor, I've recommended it to a lot of people and in many cases have loved to see what strength it supplies to a believing heart.


Psalm 27:1-3, 13-14 (NASB)
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life. Whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arise against me, in spite of this I will be confident … I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.


May the peace of God guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And may the joy of the Lord be our strength.

ABOUT THAT ELEPHANT

Out of India comes an ancient story of a small group of blind men who, learning that they had some sort of animal in the room, worked together to arrive at a shared understanding of what exactly they had on their hands. As the story goes, it was an elephant, but each blind man's observation suffered from his limited perspective. ("It's like a wall," said the man at the elephant's side. "It's like a snake," said the man at the front of the elephant. Etc.)

Out of last week's post, the elephant in my room is the fact that I am trusting God to rescue me from a sizeable problem (Rectal cancer) that God could have, but didn't, prevent me from getting in the first place. This elephant of mine I think worth blogging about (again) because, as I was saying, "there IS the same sizeable elephant in the life of every troubled person. We all have our stuff" -- which is what reminded me of the small group of blind men collaboratively sizing up the elephant in their room. "

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear," Jesus said on more than one occasion. In the same way, we who have eyes to see are obligated to see as clearly as we can. And so I have tried. From where I am standing, I see that the question that my elephant raises is answered by the intention of God to discipline and chastise me in order to conform me further to the image of Christ. Of course, I didn't just make that up. The idea comes from Romans 8:28,29 and Hebrews 12:1-7. This is answer enough to allow the elephant and me to share a room comfortably. But then, none of us sees perfectly. At best, "we see in a mirror dimly."

So now, a week later, I venture to feel my way around this sizeable elephant to see as clearly as I can some other answers to the same question of why this lousy and difficult thing is happening to me, and why other lousy, difficult things happen to almost everyone. I do so because it is so plain to me these days that with this particular elephant, there are other people in the same room. This dark valley that God is leading me through is a dark valley for many others, starting with my wife. While for me, it's plainly the valley of the shadow of death, for my lovely wife, it's the valley of the shadow of widowhood. For my dear godly parents, it's the loss of a child (Admittedly, a very old child, but still a child of theirs.) For my own grown children, it's the loss of a parent. And then there's my beloved church family, for whom my circumstances are threatening them with the loss of their pastor of many years, which at the very least means a pretty significant disruption to normal church life.

All of this to say that even in regard to something as personal as having cancer, the personal details of a person's life are never just about him or her. The biblical assurance is that God uses the details of every life, including the lousy and difficult details -- in some ways, especially those details -- to accomplish his good and acceptable and perfect will in the lives of many people. And this makes it all the more important that each of us accept the details of our lives, and the details of the people in our lives, including all of the lousy and difficult details, as important and meaningful aspects of the story God is telling to us and through us, and then having accepted them as such, that each of us respond to them and cope with them and make use of them exactly as we have been instructed.

So let us live comfortably with the elephant, and, following our instructions, let us "count it all joy." I gladly give to the apostle Peter the final words, (him being a man who lived a life with plenty of difficult details.) "And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10-11, ESV)

ONE ELEPHANT PER ROOM

As I was saying, day after day, I lie on the Tanning Bed, (face down, etc.), becoming more and more a man with a certain glow. It is now Day 18 in a series of 28. As the Radiation Persons work on what's wrong with my nether parts, I myself work up at the other end of me. As I was saying, I start this by quoting to myself Psalm 16. It begins, and so I begin, like this. "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” It's a great opener, and a great statement of faith in God's willingness and ability to see me through this. Moments later, I am at verses 5 and 6. "… you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places…" True confession. I find that quoting these two verses with conviction calls for more faith than does verse 1. And here is why. I am a man with a problem. A big problem. I've got cancer. Verses 5 and 6 point out to me that the great big External Beam Radiation Thing making all the noise and doing all the work is not the only big thing in the room. There is also a Sizeable Elephant.

From my point of view (But mind you, I am lying face down and my face is in a large cloth-covered doughnut of a thing), the Elephant in the room is the fact that I am trusting God to preserve me from a problem that God COULD have but DIDN'T prevent me from getting in the first place. So what about verses 5 and 6? I think they are painting an Old Testament picture of the Promised Land being divvied up to individual Israelites by the casting of lots (Roughly equivalent to the rolling of dice). What the psalmist is saying is that he likes the property lines he's received and that he credits God, not anyone or anything else, for getting him such pleasant places to live and work in. From where I lie, this means that where I lie, day by day, is not a random detail having nothing to do with God's plan for my life, but rather an intentional detail loaded up with significance and purpose. [Jumping from one Psalm of David to another, we can read David saying to God, "You search out my path and my lying down (My lying down. Aha!) and are acquainted with all my ways (Not none, not some, but all my ways!) … in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."]

What I have here is an Elephant not to be ignored. The Bible never explains that some thing that has happened (To me, for example) was not supposed to. It never says that what happens to an actual human being (Me, for example) was never supposed to happen but just couldn't be prevented. It never pictures God sending condolences or making apologies or saying "Oops." What the Bible DOES say, over and over again, in many different phrases, is that "whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps." Of course, a question comes to the mind of any thoughtful Elephant Observer. "What possibly could be the significance and purpose in some guy (Me, for example) getting cancer?" Here, the obvious question is followed promptly by a biblical answer. "Those who love God and are called according to his purpose are predestined to become conformed to the image of God's Son" and "the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." These are policies I cannot object to. I don't think I ever assumed that my becoming Christlike would involve tiny tweaks to my character. I don't think it ever seemed to me unlikely that God would find it appropriate to discipline and chasten me. I think that the longer I live, the more I get the point of such biblical statements as "Before I was afflicted I went astray … It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes."

So there I lie, day by day, arriving once again at verses 5 and 6. And what I have come to see is that the faith expressed in those two sentences is the Elephant Gun that has been issued to us. The fact is, there is a Sizeable Elephant in every troubled person's room. We all have our stuff. It's one thing (and a great thing) to be able to trust God to preserve us in, and to get us out, of our troubles. It's a more foundational great thing to be able to trust God about the fact that we got into our troubles in the first place. And when we let the Word of God be our guide and we come to understand and to believe that God has his reasons for having things go the way they go, we learn to "count it all joy" when we "meet trials of various kinds." That is the way James wrote about in the New Testament. King David, on the other hand, said the same thing this way (to conclude Psalm 16),"Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

PINK PILLS FOR PALE PEOPLE

I grew up in Brockville. I was born in Kingston and I graduated from both high school and university in Kingston, but from the age of two until the end of Grade Twelve, I was a Brockville boy, and always glad to be. For one thing, Brockville is built on the banks of the spectacular St. Lawrence River. For another, Brockville was named after a genuine hero of the War of 1812, Sir Isaac Brock (although dying as he did in the Battle of Queenston Heights, he didn't live to hear that a little United Empire Loyalist town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River had re-named itself after him -- or that he had just been knighted.)


Not so much "a thing" for me but true nonetheless is that one of Brockville's first millionaires, a Victorian businessman and politician named George Fulford, made his fortune by acquiring the rights to market "Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People," which brings me to the subject of how else I am doing, that is, to the subject of chemotherapy.


Every day for the entire six weeks of my radiation regime, I swallow eight pink pills, four after breakfast and four after dinner. That's my chemotherapy and when all is said and done, that will be 336 pink pills "down the little red hatch." Truth be told, I have disliked every swallow. I admit that, as I am under doctor's orders to avoid direct sunshine, I am and will remain one of this summer's Pale People. But it's not doing without a suntan that I dislike. Nor is it the pink-nicity of the pills. It's the fact that they are poison. As Wikipedia puts it: "Traditional chemotherapeutic agents act by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of most cancer cells. This means that chemotherapy also harms cells that divide rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles." Hair follicles, I have found I can do without hair follicles but I am of a different mind concerning my bone marrow and my digestive tract.


So here I am, day by day, a Pale Person swallowing sixteen little Poison Pink Pills, and generally always creeped out by the experience. But I'm not at all inclined to turn away from the counsel of my doctors and from their choice of pills. I've been telling people for years that sometimes you have to pick your poison. These little pink pills are the poison I pick. All 336 of them. Not because I'm pale but because I've got cancer. The alarming truth is, if something (and/or SomeOne) doesn't kill it, it's going to kill me. The fact that the pink pills are deadly poisons is the whole point. We're talking about Poisonous Pills for a Poisoned Person.


Helpfully, the whole idea of fighting killers with killers is not new to me. For all my life, I have carried around within my body a whole army of killers: pride, self-centredness, lust, envy, spite, bitterness, mean-spiritedness, laziness. These poisons are very able to kill my friendships, my family relationships, my peace of mind and my reputation. From the days when I was a young boy growing up in Brockville, I have always had these deadly enemies at work within me, with many a battle to be won or lost. One of my original Nine Dead Men, John Owen (1616-1683) wrote powerfully on this topic. He was not only a man of deep thoughts but also of big words and so he liked to call it "mortification," and now my chemotherapy reminds me of what he wrote. “Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death" … "Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”


So thanks again for asking how I am doing. But how are you doing? Let us wisely pick our poison, or to change the metaphor, choose our weapons. And the chief weapon in the war against personal wickedness is the Bible, which describes itself as "a fire and a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces" and "a two-edged sword" that pierces, divides and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And let us trust the God of hope to strengthen us to fight fiercely and so to conquer everything that is positioned to conquer pale poisoned people like us.

HOW I AM DOING. REALLY

In answer to three frequently asked and always kindly meant questions: "How are you doing?" and "How are you feeling?" and "How are you doing really?", I now break my recent blog silence, with apologies to all the people who have popped these questions to me by email and text and Facebook message and then haven't received a word from me in response. I have been feeling the love, but also feeling too tired to reply individually to every kind soul who asks for a personal progress report. My new general level of fatigue is one reason why I haven't been responding to the question. The other reason is that, after ten trips to the Radiation Therapy Room, which I sometimes like to refer to as the Tanning Salon, (with 19 trips still to go), I have very little to report, other than that I am now tired all the time, and that I spend a lot of time in the very small rooms in my house. That's it.

On a related note however, I CAN blog about how I am doing, really, at those "two things at the same time" that I blogged about a little bit ago, that is," "standing still" and "running hard." As I just mentioned, I have been to the Tanning Salon ten times so far. There is a sameness to the experience. Each time, I am called by name from the little waiting area and walked into the Salon (by one of the very pleasant and professional Staff members) where I take my place on the Tanning Bed. There is a large rubber doughnut of a thing, covered in cloth, into which I put my face, having deftly and modestly pulled my pants down (for medical purposes). And there I lie, face down and pants down, while the Radiation Professionals push me and pull me around a little bit to position me precisely for my very few moments of actual radiation. Then I am left alone in the room and the machines come to life and do their work.

LEach of the ten times, as the magic begins, I recite one of the psalms I long ago memorized. It came to me, thank the Lord, quite uncalled for, my first time in the Salon and I have found it a great help and source of strength each time since. Here it is, with the thoughts of "running hard" and "standing still" I now associate with it. Psalm 16 (ESV) Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you. It is God who I am looking to for preservation. As John Piper has written on not wasting my cancer, I am trusting in God, not in the odds. And not in science, even though I'm lying here becoming more radiant every day. I believe that all the good, and the only good, I will receive from these treatments will be the goodness of God to me. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. What a difference it makes to trust God rather than trusting anyone or anything less. I am strengthened to have joined the company of "the saints in the land," who have lived and suffered and taken refuge in God and found him faithful and good. I am glad to be free from the "sorrows of those who run after other gods." It is God I am taking refuge in. I am looking to him to preserve me. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. Whatever comes of all this, one thing is for sure. I have the Lord and he determines all my outcomes. All the uncertainties notwithstanding, the lines always have, and always will, fall to me in pleasant places and my final outcome will be a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. I'm thankful to God for teaching me how to think about all of this. His words, now written on my heart, are my instructions. The Lord has prepared me for this. With him right here at my right hand, I am unshakeable. The tanning bed shakes a bit in the middle of the process, but I'm not shaking. At all. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. I really am happy. My whole being is happy. From top to --"Ahem"-- bottom, I have joy. And this physical body of mine is safe and secure, even with cancer cells doing their darndest. Even if my "worst case scenario" DOES come to pass; even if this IS the beginning of the end of my life as I know it; even if I die of this cancer, God will not abandon my soul. It won't be me decomposing in the grave. ("I believe in the resurrection of the body"!) The Lord God, who is my refuge, will keep me running on the path to life, where the joys are full. And when the run is over, whenever that turns out to be, the pleasures of his company will last forever.

Just about then, the machines quit whirring and the Radiation People re-enter the room. They politely look away as I awkwardly get up off the Tanning Bed and pull up my pants. We tell each other "See you tomorrow" and we all get on with our day. And that, in part, is how I am doing. (Thanks for asking.)

TWO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME

"O Lord, make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.' Psalm 39:4,5 (ESV)

It is generally accepted that there is a certain trickiness involved in doing two things at the same time. Some well-known examples come to mind. Patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. For some people, chewing gum and walking at the same time. For many people, chewing gum and keeping your mouth closed at the same time. More recently added to the list: listening to your spouse and checking your Facebook at the same time.

The particular trickiness I am working on these days is perhaps an example less generally accepted, which if true is a shame. This trickiness can be compared to running hard and standing still at the same time. As for running hard, I have recently been drawn into a fight. A fight for my life. To begin, this fight involves six weeks of radiation treatment and chemotherapy, beginning next Thursday (which is the anniversary of D-Day, by the way.) Plainly, this fight must also involve faith: faith in God; faith that God will strengthen me and help me, and heal me. Things have been made pretty clear to me. Without God's help, this is a fight I am not likely to win. So I am working on being like young David of Israel, with one sling and five stones in hand, running hard towards the giant in the name of the Lord. This is the first thing.

The second thing is standing still, by which I mean quietly accepting the reality of my own mortality and the plain fact that I, like everyone I have ever met, will die someday --- and maybe sooner than later. Having had the privilege of pastoring a church for lots of years, I never would have been able to escape this truth. But I don't think I have ever been tempted to. For just as many years as I have been a pastor, I have been held in the grip of a number of writers, mostly pastors, that I have always referred to as "My Five (or Nine) (or Seven) Dead Men" (I change my mind from time to time about who belongs on the list). "My Five-or-whatever Dead Men" were all individuals and they didn't agree with each other on certain fine points of theology, but they do have a number of things in common, one of the most notable being that they ARE all dead. This, I am sure, has always been helpful to me -- and is helpful to me now. I mean, now that I might be about to die.

So this is the trickiness I am working on. These are the two things I am learning to work on at the same time: to brace myself to run hard toward my enemy, wholeheartedly fighting for my life and trusting God and praying with all my heart for strength and health and healing and a long life, while at the same time, quietly and peacefully accepting the reality that this might in fact be the beginning of the end of my life (as we know it), just as God has always intended it to be. Deb and I are trusting God to see us through the battle that begins on this coming anniversary of D-Day. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…" But at the same time, I am working on humbly accepting the fact that I always was going to die some time, and with it the fact that the time might be some time in the months ahead. "Come now you who say,`Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' --- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this and that." James 4:13,14 (ESV)

WHAT'S NEW AND WHAT'S ALWAYS THE SAME

As I was saying, "the tumour almost certainly IS cancer" and "the CT-scan will tell if this IS in fact an Early Detection Story." Although I am still waiting for more tests and the results of those tests -- and I see now that the main thing I am called to do in these early days is to wait -- the results I HAVE just received confirm that I AM a man with cancer and that this is NOT an early detection story. So this is in no way a small adventure and the stakes are just about as high as they could be. Deb (my very lovely wife) and I remain big fans of the peace of God that can guard the hearts and minds of God's people and the joy of the Lord that can be our strength. Very recently, I noticed these two ideas in Psalm 84:11 (ESV). "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favour and honour. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly." The Lord Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, IS our joy. And his peace DOES protect us as well as any shield.

GOD IS GOOD AND GOD IS GREAT AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, HERE IS MY NEWS

OK. I admit that I have always been a total wuss about the very idea of a colonoscopy. I have always (secretly) resented the likes of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan plainly speaking of the merits of every man over the age of fifty having a regular colonoscopy for the sake of early detection of colorectal cancer. As a matter of fact, I have often secretly hoped that, when it came my time to die, one of my last thoughts would be, “At least, I never had to have a colonoscopy.” Perhaps you can see where this is going...

Very recently, on the "recommendation" of my physician, I had my first colonoscopy [It was in itself no big deal. Really. One less monster under my bed.] Following the no-big-deal procedure, I was told that there is a fairly-big-deal tumour down there in the part of me where colonoscopies see things. Really. Now here I am, a man with an upcoming surgery. Generally speaking, a surgery located at the rear end of me. I am told that the tumor almost certainly IS cancer. In terms of life as I know it, it might BE the end of me. The biopsies will begin to tell the tale. And the upcoming CT-scan tomorrow will tell if this IS in fact an Early Detection Story, that is, whether or not the cancer has gone elsewhere. Apparently, the most common elsewheres are the lungs and the liver. Yikes.

So this is my non-good, non-great news. But what I have come to know over many years is that God IS good and God IS great. So although it seems I am currently at war with myself, gastrointestinally speaking, my heart and my mind are at peace. It is the peace of God. It surpasses understanding. And the purposes of the Lord will be accomplished.