Don't Waste Your Cancer

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “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” (Psalm 84:11).

3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the LORD our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Maybe it was me that did it to myself,in my lifestyle in what I ate or drank..I was given my own free will by God like everyone else..I don’t blame God but I do know this he was there when I needed him and is always there when I pray for myself or others..I do believe I have been spared for a reason and that could be to let everyone know there is a heaven and a God..I talk to anyone who will listen to me and you know I just give my lord the glory for healing me..One day I will go on to be with him in heaven but right now I am here to tell the story of my recovery..and to give all the glory to God..

My adult son was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. That Piper article was sent to him by a foreign missionary friend of ours whose wife suffered with cancer a few years ago and was eventually cured, and it made sense in that confusing time of shock and almost disbelief that this dreaded disease had actually struck someone so near and dear to us. I suppose we had somehow gotten the idea that nothing that bad would happen to any of our family because we're all born again Christians and nothing this bad has ever come our way before, therefore God must love us more than those other people who have big troubles in life. Both scripture and similar burdens placed on other Christians we know should have told us that was not a sound concept, but I guess we haven't been listening very well. OK God, you have our full attention now, and perhaps that is what this cancer thing is all about to begin with.

My son is doing surprisingly well on chemotherapy and hasn't had any really bad side affects so far, and for that blessing we thank God every day. But the chemo treatment is not over by a long shot, and we know the side affects will get worse as the drugs build up in his system. We now also have faith that God will see my son and us successfully through whatever He allows to come our way.

Another troubling side of chemotherapy for him is that he's an airline pilot with a 2-kid family, a mortgage, and all of the usual bills that go along with normal suburban life in the US today, and the FAA flight rules won't allow him to fly commercial aircraft again for a full year after the chemo treatment ends. After his sick pay runs out he will be on his own without pay or any health insurance coverage except for a COBRA policy that will cost an arm and a leg for less coverage. He and we both have some savings and other securities, but not a full year's worth for all of his family's needs. The two kids are now going to be home schooled next school year by their mother instead of attending the private Christian school my grand-daughter has attended since kindergarten, and which her brother was also scheduled to begin attending this next term, so that will be a big saving without sacrificing their education in a Christian environment.

But for now his mother and I, actually all of our family, are just hanging on to God's promise that he won't allow His children to be given any burden that he doesn't also give them the strength to bear. Possible financial problems are way down the list of things we're concerned about right now, because we believe that God has promised to supply all of our legitimate needs if we ask Him to, and we are certainly asking.

Any prayers offered up by Christian FReepers on his behalf would be greatly appreciated in case anyone out there would like to join us in prayer for his healing, a full recovery, and for our learning whatever lesson that God is teaching us by this illness. Many thanks in advance to all who pray.

If CNN had to report that they’d given their wealth to the poor and dedicated their lives to helping others, CNN would probably have a complete meltdown.

I agree. That kind of selflessness and self-sacrificial Christian love for the down and out is most likely beyond the capability of people like the majority of the CNN staff and management to understand.

I think Ted Turner is still the owner of CNN isn't he? Ted has publicly criticized Christianity and blasphemed our Saviour on many occasions, but I pray that he will repent and turn to Christ before his earthly life ends. I don't wish eternal damnation on anyone no matter how much I am offended by their political or religious views and their profligate lifestyles. Jesus died for them just as he died for me and I don't deserve salvation any more so than Turner does. But He offers it to all who will believe on Him and accept Him as Lord in accordance with His salvation plan as per the Apostle Paul's divinely inspired letter to the Romans, ch 10: vv 9-10. God's amazing grace is just that, amazing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.