2011-05-27
Good Morning Dear Ones,
For the last 11 years, I have led the Woodbury Lutheran Church prayer chain. This is a group of 195 men and women, who have come together for the purpose of praying for the needs of others. While most of these people attend our congregation, some of them are from other churches and the Via de Cristo Community. [Via de Cristo is a four-day spiritual retreat program which changed my life and my husband, Peter’s, for the better]. Every single person on that prayer chain keeps matters confidential and has a loving heart of service. Being a part of this prayer effort can be an emotional/sometimes spiritual burden; it can jerk one’s emotions from pillar to post. And yet, we have witnessed God at work doing amazing things and growing people in their spiritual maturity. Our congregation believes that prayer is at the foundation of everything it does. Today’s devotion will be a little different than most, in that it deals with the story of a woman for whom we prayed, who really knew her Covenant Partner in a way which helped mature all of us. It is the beginning of a new segment of messages in the “Our Covenant” series called “God is Faithful.” Everyone who knows God knows this, but it deserves some fleshing out.
This lady [unnamed to preserve her family’s privacy] had reached the age of 47, i.e. middle age. She had been feeling poorly of late, so she went to her doctor for a battery of tests. In the end, her doctor asked both her and her husband to come to his office to discuss the results. “I’m so very sorry to tell you that you have stage 4 breast cancer, which means that your cancer has metastasized all over your body and gone into your bones. We need to put you in the hospital as soon as possible and begin chemotherapy. It will make you feel very sick initially, but it’s the only way we can eventually keep you more comfortable and give you a better quality of life for awhile. I would suggest that you get your affairs in order.” This lady’s husband broke down in tears. She sat there without over-reacting and then said, “I know I will be leaving you and the children behind,” to her husband. “However, the affliction I have is where I meet with my Lord’s glory.” Both her husband and the doctor looked up at her, having never heard this particular reaction before. When I read this, I couldn’t help thinking about 2 COR 4: 6, “For God Who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,‘ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” I [Lynn] can relate to this, although I didn’t say those same words when I received a similar diagnosis back in ’06. My experience was to be devoid of any fright, for the Lord had settled an inner calm on me that defied explanation. Those who know me know that after 5 ½ hrs. of surgery, it was determined that I didn’t have ovarian cancer at all. But finding that out came much later than the original diagnosis. Put in more familiar terms, such a moment in a person’s life is spiritually where the rubber meets the road. One’s faith is put to the ultimate test, maybe the same test as that valiant young teenaged female in the library of Columbine High School, when an evil young man pointed a rifle at her and asked, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” And God gave her the courage to answer, “Yes,” just before this deranged youth pulled the trigger. In my heart of hearts, she will always be a heroine to me, and I know she is enjoying a wonderful heavenly reward.
Now, let me return to the lady diagnosed with cancer mentioned above, to her comment about her affliction. Having been on the prayer chain as long as I have and having seen a full caseload of cancer patients go through their journeys with this disease, I know they go through a lot, far more than I did with my illness leading up to my huge surgery and difficult recovery. This lady was about to go on this more difficult journey, only the chances for the outcome that “earthly bound” people desire weren’t good. It was likely she would go through physical death sooner, rather than later. But this lady knew that God is faithful. She had a covenant relationship, a very close one, with our Lord. He knew her, and she knew Him well. PS 17: 15 is important reconnaissance He had given her. “And I--in righteousness I will see Your face; when I awake I will be satisfied with seeing Your likeness.” She understood that our physical death is God’s plan, but our spiritual death is not. Our Covenant Partner gave His Son a huge, important assignment. JN 6: 39-40, “And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. For My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” This means that whoever is in this group has fended off the devil and his temptation, has repented of his sins, and has professed true-hearted faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the very reason the Latter said, in JN 14: 6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except through Me.” God had allowed this lady with the diagnosis of cancer to know that she believed in the Lord Jesus and that He would grant her peace and salvation. Instead of having fright, she knew she had something wonderful to anticipate. I believe the young teenaged girl at Columbine knew this too. It gave her the courage she had. As for any thoughts about her family, the lady with cancer knew that God would take care of them, even through they might grieve for awhile. He gives us His perspective, in 2 COR 4: 18, “So we do not look at the trouble we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.”
PRAYER: O Lord, with those of us privileged to believe in the Lord Jesus and have a close covenant relationship with You, You have already kept the important promise You made, in EZK 36: 26-27. “I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart. I will put My Spirit in you and will see to it that you follow My laws and keep all the commands I have given you.” It amazes us how You can shift our paradigm, the model for our way of thinking, to the opposite to that given us by our sinful nature. “The Lord alone can control the mind of a king as easily as the course of a stream” [PR 21: 1]. You alone have the right to ask the kind of questions You asked of Job in JOB 38-39. You have told us, in MT 5: 3, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit; the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.” These are the people, like the lady mentioned above, who know they are in need of Your presence and intervention in their lives, in order to live righteously and gain eternal life. They know that even if they are called home to You, that You will place Your comforting/healing hand of the Holy Spirit upon their families. They know that all Your decisions for them are righteous and in their best eternal interests. They understand that worrying won’t add another day to our lives [MT 6: 31-34]. In fact, they know that worrying is a sinful demonstration of weak faith! Dearest Abba, we beseech You to bring each of us into that kind of close covenant relationship with You. We know that it is satisfying, brings inner peace, and guides us through daily study of Your word and prayer to a closer approximation of Your perspective. We thank and praise You that You love us enough to make such obedient faith possible for us, that You put us in divinely-forged human relationships that forward our spiritual maturity. We thank and praise You for wanting to redeem us from our sin and grant us eternal life with You. In Christ’s holy/mighty name we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’m led to continue writing about “God is Faithful” by discussing Simeon, who also knew his Covenant Partner well. He too, like the lady in today’s devotion had contentment in his heart, given to him by the Lord. Part of the contentment the Lord gives us is His perspective on various aspects of our lives, discernment, and desire to align ourselves with Biblical truth. As we get to know the Lord better, we also get to see how He views us! None of us are perfect or experts on ourselves, but God can bring us closer and closer to His understanding-certainly closer than we would ever be without Him. PS 63: 5-8, “My soul will feast and be satisfied, and I will sing glad songs of praise to You. As I lied in bed I remember You. All night long I think of You, because You have always been my Help. In the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. I cling to You and Your hand keeps me safe.” In the meanwhile, our individual faithfulness can be multiplied by our example to others. God’s desire for us is uttered in 2 COR 13: 11, “Be happy and grew in Christ. Live in harmony and peace. May the God of love and peace be with You all.” I can’t speak for each of you, but I can for myself. In view of all the evil things I see in this world, my own hope for it is that some day all who believe in the Lord can have such an idyllic life, even before they answer God’s call to heaven. My hope is that the world can be made a better place, because each of you and I were in it. Praise and thanks forever to our loving God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15