IN GOD WE TRUST. WITH ALL OUR GUTS

Mark 12:28-31 ESV
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ [Deuteronomy 6:4,5] The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [Leviticus 19:18] There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Here in the Gospel of Mark (and also in Matthew 22 and Luke 10), Jesus identifies a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whole-minded, full-strength love for God as "the most important commandment." It's easy, I think, to see how it is, for in one simply-stated law, our ongoing obligation to the God who has made us, sustains us and offers to save us is thoroughly addressed. In the same breath, Jesus identifies as "the second" most important commandment our obligation to love our neighbour, that is, all the people in any kind of proximty to us.

This past Monday, having met for a second time with the surgeon who in June had turned me over for the summer to the care of two oncologists, Deb and I heard some not very good news about how much, that is to say, how little my six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation had actually accomplished. Contrary to what the early-August CT-scan seemed to indicate, the rectal tumour isn't really much smaller than it was in June and is almost certainly still inoperable. Surprisingly, the punch line of this bad news is not that I don't have an upcoming surgery after all. Instead, I have been scheduled for a four-hour surgery on Friday, September 20th: a procedure intended to prevent the prospect of a complete bowel obstruction. What this means in the long run is that my two oncologists now need to weigh in on the question of what other chemotherapy might be successful in shrinking, and so making operable, what presently remains unshrunk and inoperable. (Yikes.)

In the hours, and now the days, following the appointment, there has come to my mind what might be labelled "the third most important commandment." I am definitely free-styling here -- a questionable Bible study practice, to be sure -- but what I am thinking is this: since "the most important commandment" addresses our relationship with God and "the second most important" addresses our relationship with all of the people in our lives, a commandment that addresses our relationship to the details of our own lives, to our own challenges, to all our own stuff -- might possibly be the third most important commandment. So here, trying to be helpful, at least to my own disappointed self, is my shot at naming #3, extracted from the Old Testament as are the two commandments cited by the Lord as the first and second most important. What I'm suggesting is that the third most important commandment is this: "Trust God." Just trust God.

The Old Testament reference, of course, is Proverbs 3:5,6 ESV
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

This is a very good and helpful instruction to me just now -- except that it's not my heart that I am concerned and uncertain about. Neither this upcoming surgery, or the surgery that may or may not follow the upcoming chemotherapy, is a matter of the heart. It's not my heart. It's my bowels. In just over three weeks, this surgeon, who is reputed to be very good at what he does, and certainly seems to be a very caring and knowledgeable man, is going to cut me wide open and temporarily, for the sake of the cause, disembowel me. To put it plainly, for a few hours this September, this man who I have only just met will hold in his hands my intestines, all of them, both the large and the small. And I've never even seen his resume. I don't even know if he wears gloves. And all the while, I'll be fast asleep and so unable to make suggestions or offer feed-back.

What I have here is a great demand for trust. And I have twenty-three days to get clear and okay on this, because, to use a technical medical term, these surgeries are going to be gut-wrenching.

Psalm 20:7 ESV
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

So wrote King David in the days of ancient Israel. His point, I think, is that even in regard to our best assets and most high-tech advantages, it is God we should be trusting with all that concerns us. Even when the chariots are shiny and new and fully-loaded and the horses are fit and chomping at the bit, it is God we should acknowledge as the giver of all good gifts and the director of our paths and the healer of all our diseases.

What was true for King David in ancient Israel is true for me in modern south-western Ontario. Some trust in surgeons and some trust in oncologists, but, according to the third most important commandment, I will endeavour to trust in the Lord my God. With all my guts.

"GOD AND MY RIGHT"

One of my favourite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia features Shasta (the boy in "The Horse and his Boy"), riding an awkwardly uncooperative horse (NOT the horse referred to in the title of the book, but another horse, which "had a very low opinion of Shasta"). That boy and that horse were riding through the mountain pass between Archenland and Narnia. The point in the scene is Shasta's alarming discovery "that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was the breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature."

In this, Shasta was right. His unintroduced walking companion, who waited to be spoken to before speaking himself, was none other than "Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia." And with that great Lion at his side, this young boy (and that disappointed horse) walked through the mountain pass into Narnia without stumbling or falling or losing their way.

Last week's post featured Psalm 84:5-7, which says (ESV), "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion... They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion." And I wrote, "These are powerful words and I feel their effect. And I notice them raising a personal, practical question. How am I doing at `more-or-less travelling successfully' in the direction of Zion"?

While being the first to say that I "see through a glass darkly," it does seem to me that I am these days managing to walk the path that has been set before me "without stumbling or falling or losing my way." What I DO see clearly is that, for this, I have the Lord to thank. I feel like Shasta, managing to stay on "the highway to Zion" and managing to keep moving forward because Someone ("on a very large scale") is walking beside me.

This mental image is so helpful and encouraging, I've been working on picturing it as clearly as possible, and the picture that's developing is a surprise to me. The surprise has to do with the frequent emphasis in the Book of Psalms on "the right hand," both the Lord's right hand and "my own."

As I have mentioned a time or two previously, Psalm 16 has been on my mind this summer. Verse 8 says, "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken." Here, the Lord is at MY right hand. (Curiously, Aslan was on Shasta's left. Hm.)

I've also been thinking a lot of Psalm 63, and there, verse 8 reads, "My soul clings to you; YOUR right hand upholds me." This is not a rarely mentioned idea. For example, Psalm 139:9,10 declares: "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and YOUR right hand shall hold me."

But Psalm 73:23 says "… I am continually with you; you hold MY right hand."

So here's the picture. Here's how the Book of Psalms is teaching me to picture my journey. I'm travelling along "the highway to Zion," sometimes in the dark, sometimes unable to see even the ground beneath my feet. And the Lord is holding MY right hand in HIS right hand.

So this is not quite like the Lion and Shasta (and that horse) walking side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, both with eyes looking ahead although only the Lion sees the road clearly. Rather, "the boy" is walking this path with the Lord at his right hand. But the Lord is not facing the same direction as "the boy" but rather facing "the boy"; in fact, walking backwards along the path, not needing to be looking ahead but choosing to keep his eyes constantly fixed on my sometimes uncertain, sometimes confused face.

And here I must say that I am way too influenced by the Book of Revelation to picture Jesus, my walking companion, still dressed as a 1st-century Nazarene carpenter, but rather as we see him walking "in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters." (Revelation 1:13-15 ESV) AND as he is pictured on the white cloud in Revelation 14 AND riding the white horse in Revelation 19 AND seated on the great white throne in Revelation 20.

This is our Lord Jesus, now glorified. And he walks with me, step by step, day by day, on my right, holding my right hand securely in his right hand and so never unaware of how I am really doing. For this Jesus, my constant walking companion, is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who does everything "on a very large scale." And he is watching me take every step and he is helping me to face every unknown and he is strengthening me to step forward into every new challenge that is mine on the highway to Zion.

A HEART WITH HIGHWAYS

Today is Day 14 of the Six-Week "Chilling Period" that follows my Six-Week Chemo/Rads Experience and the two Infamous Bonus Weeks which came complete with a complimentary Three-Day All-Expense Paid Stay on the Luxurious 7th Floor of London's Victoria Hospital. As weeks of chilling go, I think I am feeling better, and so more chill, day by day.

But where exactly am I in the grand scheme of things? Today, I'll say it this way: I am walking along a highway, and that is my life. I wasn't listening to commercial radio in 1991 when Tom Cochrane's "Life Is a Highway" became his greatest hit single, and I didn't have any very young children asking me to take them to a movie in 2006 when the Pixar movie "Cars" featured the same song (covered by Rascal Flatts), but I have recently read Psalm 84 again, and so recently read again these great words of the Sons of Korah.

Psalm 84:5-7 ESV
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion... They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.

"In whose heart are the highways to Zion." I love those words. They tell me that each of us, living day by day, are travelling, more-or-less successfully, in the direction that our hearts are longing to go, towards the place that our hearts are longing to get. And they tell us that there is such a thing as a man whose heart longs to get to "Zion," that is, to the New Jerusalem, that is, to the City of God, that is, into the actual presence of the Lord.

With these words, the Sons of Korah raise a question in my mind, for me a very good question to be asking myself four weeks before the beginning of the Next Big Thing (which is, ahem, Rectal Surgery. Eeesh.) The question is "Where am I really hoping this series of Big Cancer-Related Things will get me?" In other words, what in fact IS my desired destination? Is my whole hope simply to return to good health and to the life that I was very happily living before I was accepted into the Cancer Club (One of those clubs that no one ever volunteers to join)? Or is there in my heart at least some real desire for a greater destination, a destination of more lasting value than the life I was not-so-long-ago living?

I don't know much about these Sons of Korah, but plainly in writing Psalm 84, they have a greater destination in mind. And they have in mind a man who trusts so deeply in the Lord that his heart is on fire with a desire to actually see God, that is, to actually arrive in the presence of God. This is made plain by the psalm's opening words.

Psalm 84:1-4 ESV
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God… Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!

I don't mean any of this to be understood as a death wish (as last week's post [August 7, 2013] definitely sort of was!) This is not a death-wish. It's a God-wish, which isn't the same thing at all. To desire to be in "Zion", to be in "God's dwelling place", in the "courts", in the "house" of God, is to desire God himself, and by the glorious fact of his omnipresence, that can mean spatially being anywhere. I am happily clear on the truth that I can experience the presence of God through the miracle of a complete healing from cancer and the living out of another few decades on earth. Fighting this good fight and praying for that very miracle IS one of the two things I am thoroughly committed to (If that's confusing, please see my May 31st post "Two Things At The Same Time".)

The big question is why? Why am I fighting to get back my physical health and my prospect of living to old age? The Sons of Korah provide me with the best answer, which would be that as much as I am fighting and praying for my physical life, I am fighting and praying to experience more of the real presence of God as a living, breathing, cancer-free person, living for perhaps many more years a worthwhile and faithful life in this world and in the family and in the church that God has brought me to.

But whether I live more years of this earthly life of mine in the daily presence of God or whether instead I find myself flying away to Zion is not my decision to make. It is God's to make and mine to discover. Either way, if my heart is right with God, my real desire will be to experience his presence, how and where he chooses. And if my heart is right in this way, it's because in my heart are the highways to Zion. So say the Sons of Korah, to whom I give the last words.

Psalm 84:11,12 ESV
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!

A BIG UGLY BUG WITHOUT A STING

A while ago on this blog (May 31, 2013; "TWO THINGS AT ONE TIME"), I explained that "the trickiness I am working on" is, on the one hand, "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 ON THE OTHER HAND, "quietly and peacefully accepting the reality that this cancer might in fact be the beginning of the end of my life (as we know it), just as God has always intended."


So here and now, ten weeks later (and now in the second week of a six-week "Rest Period" prior to the surgery that comes next), I turn my attention again to that second thing, and think again about dying. About me dying. Deb and I are taking seriously the challenge of realistically facing my (possibly imminent) death and we are trusting the Lord for the strong faith required to do so bravely. On our wedding anniversary this year (May 28th), we planned my funeral (which somehow never occurred to us to do on any of our previous thirty-five anniversaries.) Later that week, we picked out and purchased two grave-sites in the cemetery of my choice. (If it looks like you're going first, you get to pick these things.) You'll have to excuse me if this sort of talk seems a little beyond the limits of good taste and polite conversation, but Deb and I are being stared at by a great big thing and we're trying not to blink.


But what kind of great big thing IS the prospect of my physical death? Surely, it is not a giant to be frightened of. Lately, I have come to see that it is the same sort of awkward and quite possibly painful reality as my physical birth. Neither physical birth or physical death is a lovely reality. (Evidently, I myself was born a pretty beat-up and pathetic looking baby. So I have been told.) But this comparison doesn't in itself make my physical death a giant to be frightened of.


The thing is, for the people of God, "chosen in Christ before the foundations of the earth and predestined to be adopted," death is a necessary experience. But don't take my word for it. Here's the apostle Paul on the subject of why we have to die.


1 Corinthians 15:50-55 ESV
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body MUST put on the imperishable, and this mortal body MUST put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?”


Now there's a great question. Where is the sting of death? What happened to death's sting?


What I am seeing these days is that, for me, and the likes of me, death is a not a fee-fie-fo-fum giant. At the same time, it is not a beautiful or a lovely thing. To say that it is would be saying too much, and just making things up in an effort to make ourselves feel better.


So how is a man to think about his own death? These days, I'm thinking of it as a big ugly bug. And these days, it sits there, right in front of me, staring me in the face, poised and ready to pick me up and fly me away from everything and everyone I know and love by sight. But I face this big ugly bug without fear, for as it is written in God's Word, it has lost its sting. The sting of dying with all my sins unforgiven: gone. The sting of separation from the God who invented and personifies love and joy and peace: gone. Even the sting of separation from my loved ones is gone. (Well, sort of. But that's a topic for another day.)


So that's it. My physical death remains a big ugly bug of a thing, but it's lost its sting. And so my confidence, as Christ is my Saviour, is that when --not if, but when-- this big, ugly, non-terrifying but still-intimidating bug is given permission to take hold of me and fly me away, I'll see things as they really are, as if with new eyes.


I'll see that I'm being carried to meet my glorious Lord Jesus Christ face to face, ">the hairs of his head white, like white wool, like snow, his eyes like a flame of fire, his feet like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice like the roar of many waters."


And with my new eyes, even the big ugly bug will look different to me, and I'll see that I'm actually being carried into the presence of God on the wings of an angel.


And even now, to all who have ears to hear, the Lord Jesus says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades." (Revelation 1:14-18, ESV)