Can you become thankful for the experience of cancer or a life-threatening illness? I believe, indeed I know you can. But it involves exchanging our initial portion for another. This calls for honest evaluation.
Many a believer in Jesus has employed a number of religious responses, including denial and declaring that “none of these things move me.” Really? When an earthquake hits your epicenter, you sway.
If ever there is a time to realize that you do not know what you do not know, it is often in such a season.
First, you look at the evidence. Calling it for what it is often requires sitting with it long enough to admit it stinks, it hurts, you didn’t want or ask for it, and you have a lot of questions without a lot of answers.
You may find it drives you to the Word of God in search of a verse you can put your finger on to speak peace to your emotions. You may search the internet for affirmations to drown out the thoughts racing through your mind. Both can work. For a while.
Whichever direction you are wired to turn, I share with you from experience that for an aching soul, honesty before the Lord is a necessary step to your mind being transformed and your soul brought out of prison. Even as simultaneously your life is being threatened and your body turned against you.
Sometimes we are tempted to gaze past the bars set firmly in place around our heart and declare that we are free even as we are deeply unsettled inside over ‘the portion’ that is now part of our story.
I have a newsflash for you: we do not free ourselves.
He or she whom the Son sets free is free indeed,
and that freedom comes from knowing the truth (John 8:32,36).
About ourselves and about Him.
Then our healing really begins.
You see, dwelling in the land of the living while going through the experience of cancer or a life-threatening illness is not simply about seeking a cure and medical attention for our bodies. The Lord is intent upon bringing us into a wholehearted healing that includes our soul and spirit. This same One who created our tri-part being is not willing that any part of us be left out of His healing reach or be a non-recipient of His healing touch.
Enter David, hiding in the back of the cave when King Saul (seeking David to take his life) entered that same cave to relieve himself. It was there that all of David’s previous professions to the Lord were put to the test. Not unlike when a life-threatening medical situation seeks to take our life, in part or in full.
Thrust into an instant ‘cave’, those are the times when reading David’s heart-rending psalm (in the above photo*) that our heart cries out right along with him. However, David in his experience went where sometimes we find it hard to go:
Straight to the declaration that Adonai (Lord, Master, Provider, Sovereign)
is ‘My Portion’ in the land of the living.
David, along the paths of his life, had made that exchange of his initial portion – the life he had been given. He had learned that being an insufficient refuge for his own life meant the only real refuge he had was the Lord Himself. That life was truly life only by exchanging his lesser portion for the Lord, Portion in its fullness.
Death does not need a refuge. Remaining present in the land of the living does. Otherwise, it is most unbearable when natural strength and human mental effort to remain ‘positive’ wearies and waxes cold.
I have had the experience of cancer twice in the last decade (2006 and 2010). As have many others, I’ve known what it is to look the threat of death squarely in the face and cry out to the Lord. Though separated by thousands of years, David and I are united through the same Holy Spirit that moved upon both our hearts to the point where our lips could declare that Adonai is ‘My Portion’.
Oh the utter sense of relief, belonging and having a firm hold on the reality of your true, eternal Refuge.
Not just in the future but also in the here and now. Response to the Holy Spirit’s moving upon your heart releases a healing flow that whether you live or die, your faithful Portion confirms His resurrection life within.
Then you can genuinely say – from your heart and not out of religious speak – that “none of these things move me” because you are no longer relying on your weakened self but upon His strong Self. He is the unshakeable One against Whom no prison doors can prevail when you ask Him to bring you out:
To the praise of His Name.
For the triumph of the righteous
(yes you do influence others by your choices and responses).
Rewarded by Him and with Him.
Your full Portion. ▪
~ Nancy
*Psalm 142 recites verses 1-7 in most versions. Tree of Life version separates verses 1 and 2, thus verse 8.
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