I know that in my last post I said I would be blogging more now – so much for good intentions.  I think my problem over this time is a few parts misery from chemo, a few more parts self-pity, and a heaping helping of there’s-already-too-much-being-written-these-days-to-add-one-more-voice-to-the-cacophany.

But, a sleepless night is a good time for a little therapeutic blogging and let me just say by way of update that I find myself strangely at peace with the world this evening.  I say “strangely” because I have not been at peace, I have tried to play the good soldier in my battle with cancer, but have secretly nursed a grudge at God and felt that He had given me the short end of the stick.

But two articles over the last several months may have set the tone for the rest of my life. The first is by Carl Trueman, titled, An Unmessianic Sense of Non-Destiny. He writes:

This belief that we are each special is, by and large, complete tosh.  Most of us are mediocre, make unique contributions only in the peculiar ways we screw things up, and could easily be replaced as husband, father or employee, by somebody better suited to the task.  The mythology nevertheless helps to sell things and allows us feel good about ourselves; indeed, the older you get, the more things it sells, from gym memberships, to cosmetic surgery, to hair pieces, to botox injections; but it is just mythology – the whole of human history so far strongly suggests that, as you get old, you cease to be as cool, and that you inevitably find that life just isn’t as sweet as it was when you were eighteen.

As I look round the church, it strikes me that this zen-like condition of a lack of ambition is much to be desired because far too many Christians have senses of destiny which verge on the messianic. The confidence that the Lord has a special plan and purpose just for them shapes the way they act and move.  Now, just for the record, I am a good Calvinist, and I certainly believe each individual has a destiny; what concerns me is the way in which our tendency to think of ourselves as special and unique (which we all are in some ways – D.N.A. etc.) bleeds over into a sense of special destiny whereby the future, or at least the future of myself, comes to be the priority and to trump all else.

Put bluntly, when I read the Bible it seems to me that the church is the meaning of human history; but it is the church, a corporate body, not the distinct individuals who go to make up her membership.  Of course, all of us individuals have our gifts and our roles to play: the Lord calls us each by name and numbers the very hairs of our heads; but, to borrow Paul’s analogy of the body, we have no special destiny in ourselves taken as isolated units, any more than bits of our own bodies do in isolation from each other.   When I act, I act as a whole person; my hand has no special role of its own; it acts only in the context of being part of my overall body.  With the church, the destiny of the whole is greater than the sum of the destinies of individual Christians.

Even the Lord’s Prayer is modest by comparison to many of our prayers:

Take, for example, prayer.  Compare the prayers many of us have no doubt prayed, of the “O Lord, please use me for doing X’ variety, with the priorities of the Lord’s Prayer, where the petition is much more modest – ‘lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil, for the kingdom is yours etc.’   One could paraphrase that prayer perhaps as follows: ‘Lord, keep me out of trouble and don’t let me get in the way of the growth of your kingdom.’    No basis there for the typical `Lord, use me greatly to do this, that or the other thing I quite fancy doing’ — usually prayed, of course, before or after the pious throat-clearing phrase, `if it be your will…..’  The Lord’s Prayer, by contrast with many we cook up for ourselves, is a great example of words designed for the lips of believers who really understand the gospel, of those with, to coin a phrase, an unmessianic sense of non-destiny.

The second article is one I came on today, titled “Why You Won’t Find the Meaning of Life” by David P. Goldman who writes as Spengler, for the Asia Times Online:

There is something perverse in searching for the meaning of life. It implies that we don’t like our lives and want to discover something different. If we don’t like living to begin with, we are in deep trouble.

Danish philosopher, theologian and religious author Soren Kierkegaard portrayed his Knight of Faith as the sort of fellow who enjoyed a pot roast on Sunday afternoon. If that sort of thing doesn’t satisfy us (feel free to substitute something else than eating), just what is it that we had in mind?

People have a good reason to look at life cross-eyed, because it contains a glaring flaw – that we are going to die, and we probably will become old and sick and frail before we do so. All the bric-a-brac we accumulate during our lifetimes will accrue to other people, if it doesn’t go right into the trash, and all the little touches of self-improvement we added to our personality will disappear – the golf stance, the macrame skills, the ability to play the ukulele and the familiarity with the filmography of Sam Pekinpah.

These examples trivialize the problem, of course. If we search in earnest for the meaning of life, then we might make heroic efforts to invent our own identity. That is the great pastime of the past century’s intellectuals. Jean-Paul Sartre, the sage and eventual self-caricature of Existentialism, instructed us that man’s existence precedes his essence, and therefore can invent his own essence more or less as he pleases. That was a silly argument, but enormously influential.

I think I have been insulted that God would choose to give an important person like me cancer.  To be sure in the early days I geared myself up for the great fight – I was going to face it bravely and be an inspiration to others.  The trouble is that I live with myself and I know that my bravery is a face I put on – the real me is the one turning like a door on the hinges of his bed most of his bewailing his fate – ah, but we are actors on a stage.

Trueman opened the door for me to quit feeling so important.  Goldman has cracked it a little further and helped me see all that I do have.  I have the pot roast on a Sunday afternoon, truth be told I’d prefer lasagna, but the point is the same.  I lack nothing necessary for an extraordinarily happy life – any unhappiness, self-pity, or courage is simply a put on.  I am who I am – not courageous, but cancer notwithstanding not in bad straits by any means.

I think it’s time to say goodbye the Christian industrial complex, the evangelical hype and marketing machine that promises life change every Thursday and promises that you, yes, you, and me yes me, can change the world.  Hogwash.  None of us is required to change the world for Christ, Christ has changed the world permanently, none of us can do anything about it.  Everyone wants to change the world, no one wants to do the dishes or take out the trash.  I would trade every kid who takes a mission trip to change the world for one who would stay home and clean his room, treat his brother like a human being and help mom around the house without being asked twice.  Changing the world is easy, the latter is harder and far more Christlike.

The same goes for adults – I don’t need to become a great leader, I need to prepare a regular ol’ word based sermon for Sunday, make some phone calls to some shut ins, listen to my elders instead of sharing my vision with them and generally be available to my congregation.

And I need to be thankful that prayer is not nearly as difficult a thing as the books make it out to be.  Trueman’s prescription is right – Lord thank you that you have come in the flesh, have died, resurrected and forever changed the world and that the Kingdom has come.  May it keep coming and keep me out of the way.  I confess that I haven’t forgiven so and so, so I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but want it anyway and with your help I’d like to forgive so and so.  Keep me out of trouble and I not only pray for daily bread, I thank you that daily you spread a cornucopia before me that generations in the past could only dreamed of.  I wouldn’t blame you if you slay me if I utter one single cotton-pickin word of complaint about the government, the president, the kids next door, the barking dog two doors down, or if my wife burns the biscuits.

So all of this is to say that I am in the midst of a mid life change of heart and mostly I simply want to learn the art of thanksgiving.  To do that let me give thanks to God.  I’m in a season which is pretty good – blood numbers look good and I’m handling the side effects of chemo better than I have in months.  But I have a killing disease and my greatest prayer is to be able to mean it from my heart that though he slay me, yet will I praise Him.

Even on a night like tonight when I have the inconvenience of insomnia, this is a reminder that I have been given a few extra hours to praise the Lord and thank Him.  And also to thank you dear reader, and especially you Dan Phillips.  I have it all – the Lord, food, family, I have been kept free from major trouble via the evil one, and I have dear friends like you who read these meanderings.  May you be blessed as I have.

I had a CT Scan last week and got the results yesterday – everything is improving.  The doc went through and read the results on a bunch of the tumors they are tracking and all have shrunk.  At this point we are dealing in millimeters, so nothing dramatic, but a bunch of the tumors in my lungs went from something like, say 6 mm to 4 mm, or something like that.  The tumors in my liver also showed signs of shrinking.

Also, the CEA, which is a blood tumor marker, went from a 14 to a 9, that is good, the smaller the CEA number the better.

So, this means that this latest round of chemo is working, so I again give thanks to God for good news like this and for each new day of life.

I also give thanks to you, I know that God answers the prayers of His people.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty lousy, but that comes with chemo.  It’s not unbearable, but it is irritating to not feel like getting out of bed most of the time, at least during the weeks I am on a chemo.  I am taking an oral chemo called xeloda, which is 7 days on and 7 days off, plus I get Avastin, once every other week – I have to go to the hospital to get that by IV.

So, I have 7 days of feeling pretty lousy but I rebound pretty good the other 7 days and am able to enjoy life and get some work done.

So again, thanks for all of your prayers and I’ll try to keep you updated.

But I thought I would share something today that I hope is helpful.  It’s a quote from Larry Crabb, sorry I don’t remember which book – I know it’s got to be from at least 10 years ago -

The goal is that God be glorified in us, not useful to us.

That sums up my life.  I think that sums up much of the Scripture and I think it sums up where we go wrong in so many ways.  I just can’t figure God out.  I can’t figure out why I can have one day that is so good I feel like I must be cured and then go for weeks without wanting to get out of bed.  I can’t understand why I, as His beloved child, am following pretty much the standard path of the cancer sufferer – doing good for awhile, the cancer abates when I’m on chemo and grows when I’m not.  My life pattern is one where, in order to keep the cancer in abeyance, i. e. keep it from killing me soon, I have to live a life of basic illness from chemo.  I can go off chemo and start feeling a little better for a time but then the cancer grows and death looks closer.

A friend told me tonight that someone told him the covenant promises of God stand for the believer – obey and God will bless, He will cause your kids to follow Christ, and will prosper you financially and otherwise.  I’ve heard basically the same thing about health.  My friend is also going through some very difficult long term trials and he didn’t think this person understood the covenant promises of God anymore than I do.

If this is the case, if the O. T. covenant promises stand as literally stated then how do you explain the cross of Christ.  If the cross removed the curse then why do the all time top 12 of the Christian faith not have lives that conformed to the pattern of blessing – why were the most obedient tortured and subject to horrible rejection and death.

For the record I am staking my life on the hope of the covenant promises, but I believe their final fulfillment comes in the age to come.  For now I can only conclude that the life of a faithful believer is one of pain, suffering and confusion.  This doesn’t mean it’s one without joy and contentment, and I don’t mean to say that my life is without joy and contentment.  There are times these days when I know greater joys than I ever did before cancer.  But I’m also far more confused and disoriented than ever.

That’s why I like Larry Crabb’s quote.  I think it conforms to the theology of the cross.   The theology of the cross tells us that God’s ways are hidden to us.  The theology of the cross also conforms to the Holy Spirit.  The fundamental aspect of the Holy Spirit is that we can’t know what He is doing according to John 3:8.

I think much of our confusion and disorientation in life comes from the desire to find God useful to us.  Job’s counselors’ mistakes were in thinking they understood the ways of God with man, and of course the corollary to that is that they then felt compelled to express their (mis)understanding.

God is always glorified, we just can’t see how.  God is not useful to us because our agendas aren’t His.  I really don’t think as a Christian that I’ve been equipped to live in a world where God is not useful to us, and where His ways are incomprehensible.  I think the only people who know this and can pass it along are the old school Presbyterians and Lutherans whom we evangelicals rejected in favor of church growth long ago.  Oh yeah, I think all of those old people we put out to pasture because they stood in the way of our passions, visions and missions probably could tell us a thing or two.  And as always, a good deal of my mud slinging in this paragraph is driven by guilt over my own neglect of the wisdom of old school Presbyterians and Lutherans and little old ladies and men who like hymns whom I discarded in my quest to become the next great “leader.”

We have Jesus in the theology of the cross that is communicated to us in the preaching of the Word and sacraments.  He’s not all that “useful” to great visionary leaders, but He is sufficient and will be glorified, we just won’t necessarily to see it.

Secondly, let me apologize in advance for pulling a Brett Favre here – I wrote those dramatic posts a while back about how I was hanging up my blogging cleats, and oh, well looks like I must have been kidding.  Actually, when I hung up the old typepad blog I did leave room for a return and that is why I opened up here at WordPress.  I also hope I am in the process of dealing sufficiently with the things I had mentioned before that I will be able to blog for better reasons.

Also, and this will move me into a bit more of an explanation of why I am blogging again, I am doing so at least in part for the therapeutic value. My buddy Dan Phillips mentioned that as one of the reasons he blogs and I had a conversation today that got me thinking it could help me.

I went to see my shrink today and we talked a bit about goals.  I didn’t say this to my shrink, but I despise the very idea of goal-setting, but that’s a personal thing for me.  I’ve always been so-so at best in setting and seeing goals through, but several years ago I went through what I am confident was the best goal setting process of my life as we sought to “vision-cast” (a rotten phrase that is now banished to my own personal hall of loathsome shame) our plan for the church.  Seriously, we did a great job.  We had an executive coach, who is a guy I would recommend to anyone here in the Anne Arundel County Area, the plan was well thought out from beginning to end and unlike most of my plans we had clear and achievable implementation goals and plans complete with people to work them.  In all seriousness I had a great deal of confidence because this was a plan where we had lots of people doing the work, though I was the leader I was not alone and we had plenty of things built in to make it work.

Then on the weekend we rolled out the plan I found out I had cancer.  That was like a domino which started knocking down all the pieces of “the plan.”  It has been a bitter pill to swallow.  I still believe that God is good but I am having a hard time coping with His providence.  Part of that difficulty is that I am afraid to make plans and set goals.

Still, I have a great relationship with my shrink and he is right on the value of having some goals to make my remaining days on earth productive and vibrant.  Most of these have to do with preparing my family to cope with the difficult days ahead, but writing may be of some benefit also.

I don’t know if I want to write a book.  For one thing I may not be able to.  Writing a book takes sustained time and concentration and my energy is so up and down I hate to commit to long term projects.  Still, I may be able to scratch out an outline and tackle it the way you eat an elephant – one bite at a time.

I also question the value of writing books.  I’ve taken a curmudgeonly turn over the last couple of years and I really have gotten to where I really love older books, or newer books by more seasoned Christians.  I remember when I was a kid I read a bio of Josh McDowell.  He said he had heard of some saying in Japan that you shouldn’t write a book until you are over 50 because no one is wise enough to write a book until they get that old.  He went on to explain why he was making an exception at the time and it was actually fine, I remember the book being a great thing for me as a new Christian.

Still, I think the advice is pretty good and it wouldn’t hurt any of us Christians to not write or read books by people under 50 years old.  Of course I am going to get in trouble with that immediately – I’ve read good things about the book by Trevin Wax, I enjoy Jared Wilson and am chomping at the bit to read Matt Anderson’s new book, so maybe we give special dispensations to certain folks.

But this is why I want to be careful about writing a book.  There’s just too many books being published these days for any single book to make much of an impact.  And sadly, a lot of those books are being written by younger people who have had flashes of success but haven’t yet become seasoned Christians. I’m only 47 now – close enough I suppose to 50.  Plus, I hope my soul has aged in the last couple of years.  Still, in some ways I still don’t believe I’ve experienced enough of life to write wisely.  While I may blog here for therapeutic purposes my intent to write a book will only be if I believe I can cobble something together sufficiently coherent on the theology of the cross to be of use to the church, if I have been seasoned sufficiently and I do believe the cancer itself has finally put me into the school of suffering which seasons a Christian (though I’m a sophomore at best) and if I believe I’ve dealt sufficiently with my own bitterness in my reaction to this most recent frowning providence.

I don’t consider myself bitter, yet at times I think I am.  So much has gone so wrong over these last couple of years that my head still spins.  At times I have joys I had never known and I see clearly that I have been uniquely blessed by God in my life.  Other times I moan and mourn saying “why me God!!!”  So, I don’t know what I’ll do – on the bad days it is only the theology of the cross that keeps me going and I commend it to you – read Carl Trueman’s article on it, then read any good Lutheran you can get your hands on about it.

As for blogging – it may simply give me something to do with down time. I don’t have as much anxiety about blogging as writing a book.  Blogging is a conversation and is not generally thought of as a final product or an author’s last word on a subject.  I don’t want it to take away from my family and church the way I used to with it.  I also don’t expect my kids to want to read my blog but I do expect to be gone before too long and I am hoping that days may come when they will want to acquaint their kids with the grandfather they never knew, and if there is a way to preserve some thoughts through blogging that would be great.

So, please do pray for me.  I don’t expect anyone to feel obligated to read, but if you do please leave comments.  Pray for a few things.  Pray for my health – it continues to rise and fall, but the long term pattern is one of decline so pray that God may give me more years with my family and church.  Pray that I would resist the urge to get back into the blogging mainstream – that if I have this burning post that I just have to go write, right now – that I will first go spend some time with the family or call up someone from the church to check on how they are doing.  Then, if there is time left, pray that I’ll write a post which will edify as many as possible. But then pray that, where blogging can serve as a good creative and therapeutic outlet I would use it as such.

Thank you, as always for the generosity of your time.

Ok, not really.

I am here for two reasons: first to make an announcement and ask for any available help, and second to give a health update on my dad.

First things first. I’m going to London. Upon the turning of the New year, as well as the added bonus of graduating from High School, I decided that I would take a year off to work and travel. In the fall I will be working almost full time and studying part-time at the local comm. rftc x3632.783……….frrrrrrrrtgggggg        wb ,w444444444443

-My apologies. The new kitten walked all over my keyboard-

…..community college. Then, in late December or early January, I will be going with the comm. college on a two-week trip to London to do all the touristy things and instead of returning stateside with them, I will just. . . . . stay. I have friends in a variety of European countries, but not as many as I like, so this is where the request comes in play:  If you have friends in Europe (preferably Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland or Poland, although any country is quite fine by me)  who you think would be willing to help me out on my trip, (or if you yourself is in or from Europe) would you let me know what country they are in so that as my trip draws closer I can expand my list of contacts, I would be much obliged.

My parents are a bit more nervous about this trip after having seen the movie “Taken,” so I’m doing whatever I can to alleviate their  anxiety.

My second purpose for this post is to update y’all on my dad. He’s currently doing well. He has just started chemo up again, but this time it’s oral and not straight to the blood. Twice a day for a week by mouth, every other week. I’m not sure if it’s a pill or what but you can ask. This is his week off. He still preaches and still begs for your prayers. He wanted me to tell y’all that he will be posting sometime soon. “Soon” can mean a lot of different things for my dad, but I imagine he’ll post this week.

Well, as they say in Dutch, Goedemiddag (Good afternoon!)

This nagging feeling that I was engaged in self-promotion is part of a larger aspect of my psyche that I have wrestled with for many years, many of those years being before the blogging days.  I will spare you a detailed journey into my psyche, except to sketch out a few patterns of thought and longing that became troubling to me in recent days.

At the outset I want to assure you that I recognize these issues as my issues alone, so this is not a commentary on anyone but me.

I became a Christian at the age of 16 through the direct witness of my best friend, our football coach, and indirectly through the work of the Fellowship of Christian athletes. My conversion was genuine, many questions were answered, assurances of eternal felicity offered and embraced and a new life was begun. My life changed dramatically in many ways – most of all in that Christ began to dominate my life.  I wanted to live and give my all to Him, to know Him and make Him known.  Pretty soon I became known as a “good Christian,” due to a genuine passion to know Him and through the faithful discipling ministrations of my coach – Jim Scroggins, youth minister – Bob Tebow (yep, that Bob Tebow – father of Tim Tebow) and FCA area director – Rick Duncan.  This was fostered by the loving ministry of the people at Southside Baptist Church in Jacksonville, FL, pastored by Cornelius Davis.

Throughout my life I was always sidekick, never superhero.  I made the team, but rode the bench.  I got C+’s and “B’s” in school.  I was average in every way.  But in Christianity I excelled.  I excelled to the point that I was elected president of our schools FCA, and was recognized as our school’s “Christian Athlete of the Year,” at one point.  Christianity quickly became the thing I could excel in and over a short period of time I began to sense a call to the ministry.

Now, due to my own reflections I am going to look back on some of this and see my own idolatries popping up even then.  But I also want to make clear that I believe that God has mercy on sinners, and that at no time in my journey was I forsaken by God and I want to make it clear that I believe He has used even my sins to praise Him.

But with a call to the ministry, it became obvious and reasonable that I would look for role models to emulate.  This happens in any field.  Athletes idolize professionals in their chosen sport and dream of the day they can make it that far in the game.  Artists, businessmen and women do all of this.

For me, as one with a sense of call to the ministry I looked to the “successful” ministers to pattern my life after.  This was in the late 80′s and 90′s and I was in a Southern Baptist context, so the people I looked up to were movers and shakers in the SBC like Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines, Charles Stanley, Bailey Smith, Jay Strack and others.  At various times I was a member of churches pastored by Jerry Vines and Jim Henry.  I also listened on the radio and got tapes of people like John MacArthur and Chuck Swindoll.

From where I sat it looked like the great pastors were the ones who were the best preachers.  And, after all, I benefited greatly from their messages.  From where I sat it looked like the key to successful ministry was to be a great pastor, and conversely it appeared to me that anyone who would become a great preacher could have crowds flock to him.

Now, I am obviously shortening things up a great deal here – there were many influences and experiences, and in truth, my own ambition was not the whole story here.  God did man great things in my life through those years.

But as I pursued ministry and moved into the pastorate, though my view of the pastorate broadened and deepened through the years, I put the greatest emphasis on preaching, believing that was where the most value came in ministry, and frankly I never really learned to love people.  I had a great deal of selfish ambition driving all that I did.  I thought it was my destiny to build a great church and because of this I never became the kind of loving, passionate and compassionate shepherd the church needs.

When blogging hit the scene a few years ago it became a means for me to expand my influence.  Due to the kindness of many bloggers with a larger audience, particularly Adrian Warnock, I was able to rise quickly to become a fairly prominent blogger, at least in the small circle of the Christian blogosphere.  I had more people reading my posts in a day than heard my sermons in a month.  I began to dream of writing books and things like that.

As late as 4 years or so ago I stil had a vague masterplan for where I wanted to go in ministry.  I wanted to stay with my current church.  Even though it had not grown to become the large church I had hoped, I still had hopes it was.  Plus, the people here are terrific. While I do believe I have faithfully given them the Word, I did not give them a shepherd’s love.  And while we still had a fair amount of conflict I knew I had received many kindnesses from them.  The sheep always took great care of the shepherd, looking back I am sorry that they had to, but am glad they did.  So I had hopes I could repay them their kindnesses, plus we were beginning to experience some demographic changes in the area that I believed might stil lead us to become that large church I wanted to pastor.

My personal ambitions were to continue to lead this flock, to see it grow, to keep blogging and to begin seeking out book contracts in the near future.  I had a few ideas in my head of things I believed I could pull together and submit to a publisher.

So all of that was running through my head in 2007-2008.  Those were particularly tough years at the church.  We decided to sell a building and seek new property for financial reasons.  Any pastor who has gone through that, or something similar like a building program can tell you it is a trying experience.  Such was the case with us.  Much dissension crept up, but at the same time, many pulled through and saw us through those difficult days.

Our leadership team went through an extended 8 month process of refashioning our vision and mission plan and it was a good plan.  In the past I had done “vision retreats” with our officers and other things and the upshot was usually a bit of changed wording here on “vision” or “mission” statements and a few programs that no one really knew how we were going to get done.  In this case though, the 8 month process was thorough – we had an executive coach lead us through the process and by the time were were done we not only had some nice looking pieces of paper to hand to people, but we had people in place to perform specific tasks and leadership roles.  We were optimistic.

We picked the first three weeks of December 2008 to roll out our new vision to the congregation, we would have our last service in our old building the last week of December and would move forward into 2009 ready to roll in our new place.

I had not felt well on several occasions during the fall of 2008.  I assumed it was the stress of the move, I wasn’t sleeping well, etc. etc..  Still, I missed most of Thanksgiving day in bed with extreme fatigue and we knew something was up.  So I made a doctor appt. the first week of December.

The first week of December went well – we rolled out the first part and it went well.  Laster that week the doctor called and said that my blood test showed I was anemic.  She wanted me to get a colonoscopy to rule out colon cancer.  That deeply scared me but I figured this is the kind of thing that happens to other people, and at worst I’d have an early stage which would be treated easily.

The second week roll out of vision went well. Friday of that week I had my colonoscopy.  The doctor came out and said “there’s no good way to say this, you have a large tumor on your colon and I need to refer you to a surgeon was to  immediately.”

That Sunday was to be the third and final part of the rollout – the big one where we would get the full plan and march on to glory.  I preached that morning, and shared the prepared vision speech.  Then at the end told our congregation that I had colon cancer and that apparently it wasn’t going to be very easy to work this vision.

Many were encouraging – they told me all kinds of stories of relatives and friends they had known who had caught it early and were living happy and healthy lives.  I’m still young I figured, I’m sure we’ve caught it early.

We went to see the surgeon the following Monday and basically found out we hadn’t caught it early.  It was already stage four – with metastases to the liver (two large tumors in the liver) and lungs.

All my ambitions crashed that day.

Over the next several months I processed what happened to me, a process I am still engaged in.  One thing became painfully clear – that is that I have a painfully short life expectancy.  I am hoping and praying I still have several years, I am hoping and praying I will be the miracle.  At the same time, I just passed over the mean survival rate so I know what the medical community thinks about my life expectancy.

Facing death does at least one thing that is marvelous – it frees you to be honest with yourself and with God.  I don’t have to pretend I was only sold out to Jesus through the years.  He knew I wasn’t, and since I may see Him soon, I have less reason to keep up the charade.  The truth is that I had many personal ambitions which I looked to stamp with His name on them.  These ambitions included a certain level of achievement within the church, recognition of gifts and ever expanding influence.  So in truth, my preaching and blogging served those ends to quite a degree.

As to what this means to anyone but me, I hope not much.  This is my story of my struggles with my personal issues.  I offer it to explain why I probably needed to get away from blogging for a bit.  Even a cancer story can raise one’s celebrity profile in some ways and I want to get that out of my system.

My only concern in sharing this story is that we Christians have our own “Christian industrial complex” that we can find ourselves playing to without realizing it.  We have a clear celebrity system which becomes very tempting to try to break into.

Those are temptations we need not fall into, but they are there nonetheless there.  When we seek to break into them, the seeds of self-promotion are always present.  And I hope I can warn any of you who may be susceptible, away from that.

The advent of blogging truly gave a platform for many people we may never heard of to share things worth reading.  For all of this internal wrestling and wrangling I have with my own motives I know beyond doubt that I benefited immensely from participating in the blogging world for several years.  The discipline of writing helped me find clarity in many ways, the back and forth communications through comments and other things sharpened my understanding of many things.  And I dare say that I even wrote some things which were helpful to people at times.

But, the white devil has never been far, encouraging me to self-promote for the glory of God.  If there is one thing I have learned through this battle with cancer it is that some of the very basic bottom line matters of Christianity are true.  Chief among them is that our call to follow Christ is a call to come and die. That call is not only metaphorical.  It it is a call to really come and die with Him.  Along the way to our final physical death, He has ordained that we endure many other deaths.  I figure that I have now been a Christian for 10,000 days or so, so I’ve had at least 10,000 or more lessons in dying to self.  Most of them I didn’t pay attention to.  Now I do pay attention to those things.

And I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt – self-promotion can not be accommodated in true Christianity.  In True Christianity, the self has to disappear, not be promoted.

I know one more thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Jesus died for people who find it hard to die for Him.  He’ll catch you when you are dying.  You don’t need that self you were trying to promote, you need His grace – to the degree you can ditch the self, to that degree you’ll get more of Him.

First a few health updates.

My last scan, back in January showed progression of disease.  All previously known tumors had shown signs of growth.   Also, numerous news spots/lesions/nodules (never sure what terminology they are using and what means what) have been found on my lungs.

Doc said that the good news was that all the growth was small, and the new ones were very small so we are not in crisis.  Said I didn’t need to go back on chemo immediately, but probably would in the near future.

Well, the near future has come.  I had another CT scan last Friday and don’t have the results yet.  I’ll see the doc on this coming Friday and will find out the results and make plans for future treatment.

Our hope is that things have reversed and I can stay off of the hard chemo – maybe stay on this maintenance treatment.

I frankly haven’t felt well lately.  I had a good couple of days a couple of weeks ago – full of energy, worked from early morning into the night.  Was hoping this was a breakthrough but I went back to my old pattern and have been mightily fatigued in recent days.  It is allergy season though, plus I got a nasty stomach flu a few weeks ago and I also had a bad reaction to the barium I had to drink for my CT scan the other day.  So that may contribute, but basically I have been feeling terrible for some time now.

There is much good news though in all of this.  2 Cor. 4:16 is mine in these days:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

I’ve lost more than a step or two but I haven’t lost heart.  My inner self is indeed being renewed and refreshed.   If you or someone you know is going through a terrible trial, take it from me, God will sustain you in the trial.  He won’t necessarily deliver you from the trial, but will be with you in the midst of it.

Though my attention is often largely diverted to physical matters, I believe and I feel that I am surrounded by God’s grace.  Christ is sufficient.  My wife is a constant companion.  My children are a delight.  The church is stalwart.  And I have many friends out there in the cyber world who continue to pray.  Of all the things I feel, and I feel many things which are all over the map, gratitude toward God and toward all of you is what I feel the most.

If you never followed me over there I used to blog on topics related to Christianity – bible, theology, Christian growth and church life.

I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in December of 2008 and have used the blog to give health updates and write about topics of interest to cancer sufferers.

I may write about some of these things here in the future.  With my being sick I can’t plan on any regular blogging but I do like to have the option available in case inspiration strikes me or in case I need to put up a quick health update.  In the past I have been greatly encouraged as people have encouraged me and my family, and offered much prayer for us.  So, I do hope to be able to post health updates, if nothing else.

If you have followed me here from the old blog I’d love to have you leave a quick comment to let me know you are here.  Thanks