What a Difference a Year Makes.

Since my last blog update, we spent October and most of November in Florida. Of course we had to travel back to Fort Wayne every other week for chemo, but we made it work.  One of the weeks in Florida, we spent at Disney with Kerri, Seth and Madeleine, while camping in Fort Wilderness.  Our time at Disney was awesome, as expected.

Just before Thanksgiving, we returned to Indiana, leaving our motorhome in Florida. The need to return to Fort Wayne every other week makes it impossible for us to spend the winter in Florida.  We are planning to return to Florida at the end of March and spend six to eight weeks before bringing the motorhome back to Fort Wayne.

Last week in addition to chemo, I had my eighth set of scans. Once again, the scans showed no active cancer anywhere in my body. Praise God! This has now been eight months of consistent scans showing no cancer. We continually thank God for the healing that has taken place in the past year.

One year ago, I was uncertain that I would be alive today. My oncologist had only given me just 12 months to live, if I underwent chemotherapy. Currently, my lab work, my physical exams, the scans and the way I feel all indicate that I am winning the battle with cancer.  God is so good.

Again, I want to thank you for your prayers and words of encouragement. While everything looks good, the oncologist says that there is no cure for this cancer. God is my source of a cure. Your continued prayers are appreciated.

More Good News

Last week was busy and good in every way. I took chemo early last week - Monday instead of Wednesday. On Tuesday, I had repeat CT scans. On Wednesday, we met with the oncologist who said the scans look good. There is no evidence of any active cancer in the liver or anywhere else in my body. Praise God!  Thank you for your prayers.

Also on Wednesday, I was disconnected from my take-home chemo and we drove the motorhome to Georgetown, KY on our way to Florida. We continued to drive on Thursday, Friday and a little bit on Saturday before arriving in North Fort Myers, Florida. We are staying at the same campground where we stayed in January through April of 2016. It was good to be at our "Florida home". The campground is in pretty good shape after Hurricane Irma but much work is being done to get it ready for the onslaught of snowbirds.

This week is the one year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. As much as we want to focus on the present and the future, we can't help but think back to those very dark days just one year ago. God has been so good to us this past year. I am reminded of His promise to never leave us or forsake us.  Joan and I have felt His presence with us each and every day of this cancer journey.  We have never known one minute of time where we didn’t feel His presence.  I was told I might have a year to live if I went through chemo. I feel great. My lab work is good and my scans are good. Praise God, I'm going to live beyond one year.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. We have felt every single one of them.  God is good and He is faithful to His people.

Good News Again

Today, I received the results from the CT scans taken on Monday. It was all good news. Praise God! There was no change from the scans taken two months ago. The unknown spots remain the same size and the one remaining “tumor” did not change in size either. My cancer marker numbers remain in the 1.5-3.0 level down from 1691 when I was first diagnosed.  My labs look great.  My exam is normal.  Taking all of the information together, the oncologist believes that the one remaining “tumor” is likely not a tumor at all and is instead, either scar tissue or dead cancer cells. The unknown spots, he believes, are spots that occur sometimes in the liver with chemo patients. The oncologist does not believe that there are any new or active, growing lesions in my liver.  The current plan of treatment (with God’s help) is working and therefore, will continue.  Thank you for your prayers!  They are working.  God is so faithful and we are so very blessed.

We have been busy. On June 29, we parked the motorhome and began renting an apartment in SW Allen County near our former home. Of course we did not have any furniture, so we have also been furniture shopping. Today the bulk of our furniture arrived, so except for needing to put things away and get better organized, we are starting to feel like we have a home again.

We did take a short break from the apartment this week and camped with Madeleine at a nearby Jellystone campground. We had a good time just taking advantage of the amenities at the campground and being with our granddaughter.

I’ve been feeling better since getting off the “nasty drug”. The side effects are less and I generally feel well. My next set of scans are scheduled for July 31. Your prayers for reduced cancer in the liver are appreciated.

I spoke last Sunday at church on Psalm 91. This psalm has been a comfort to Joan and I during our journey through cancer. My message is below. I hope you find comfort from these words:

When we read the Psalms, we need to remember that we are reading a different type of literature than what most of the rest of the Bible is written in. The Psalms are part poetry, and part Wisdom Literature. Poets use similes (comparisons) and hyperbole (exaggerations) to make their points. Wisdom Literature tells us how to live a righteous life. Wisdom Literature tells us how to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to God and generally lead to success. However, we need to be careful not to take everything in Wisdom Literature as a specific promise from God to us.

Psalm 91 is not attributed to any author. Commentators do not agree on when the Psalm was written.

Psalm 91: 1-2

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

The Psalm starts with the word, “Whoever”. This opportunity is available to all who are willing to pay the price. It reminds me of John 3:16. God’s salvation is open to all.

Verse 1 describes a believer who comes to God in need of security and rest.  The wording, probably reminded the Hebrews of the temple which represented God’s presence here on earth.

Some commentators prefer the wording in the KJV of the Bible that states that that whoever dwells in the secret place of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This secret place is hidden from the world. It is set apart for believers to be alone with their God.

The Psalmist then says in verse 2 that he will say that God is his refuge and his fortress, his God in whom he trusts. Calling God “the Almighty” indicated that there is no higher power than God.

It is clear that the Psalmist believes that God provides protection, safety and security. We can trust God for his protection.

A refuge is a place that provides shelter or protection. We seek refuge when we are overwhelmed or when we need relief.

Where do you run for refuge? The world runs to drugs, overuse of alcohol, thrill-seeking behaviors, shopping and fantasy. The lost search for ways to provide security or to escape reality that never satisfies or provides real security.

Believers should run to God. Believers have a refuge in Yahweh.

It’s also interesting that the psalmist used several different names for God. The Most High refers to the possessor of heaven and earth. Our God owns everything. The Almighty refers to the God who provides for us. It’s not enough that has the resources to meet our needs, he provides the resources to us.  LORD, written in all CAPS which most Bibles use as a translation for the name Yahweh, was the unspoken name of God.  It means that He is faithful to his word. He keeps His promises. The name God refers to His power. It was first used in relationship to creation in Genesis 1:1.

The God who has possessions, provision, promise and power is ready to protect us.

Verses: 3-8

3 Surely he will save you

    from the fowler’s snare

    and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,

    and under his wings you will find refuge;

    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

5 You will not fear the terror of night,

    nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

    nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,

    ten thousand at your right hand,

    but it will not come near you.

8 You will only observe with your eyes

    and see the punishment of the wicked.

After declaring that there is safety, security and refuge in the presence of the LORD, God Almighty, the writer then describes a list of difficulties that one might find himself in. Many of these are unseen types of problems.

In verse 3 he says that God will save from you the fowler’s snare and pestilence. It does not say that God would prevent some tragedy from happening. It does not say that we would never be caught in a trap. Being saved from the snare means that you were in the snare and got rescued from it. Let me say that again…Being saved from the snare means that you were in the snare and got rescued from it.  Being saved from the pestilence is another way of being rescued from a deadly problem.  I believe my cancer to be a deadly problem…you may have other examples.  HE saves us from our deadly problems!

Verse 4 paints a picture of being shielded from danger by a giant, powerful, loving, bird, who protects us. Again this is where we find refuge. The Psalmist may have been thinking of Deuteronomy 32:11, where God compared Himself to an eagle that carried the Israelites on His wings.

Then in verse 4 it says: his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.  God is faithful to His word and His promises.  His faithfulness should give us comfort in the midst of troubles. The shield and the rampart are defensive weapons used to protect.  It would take more time than we have today if I were to begin to list the ways God has provided comfort to Joan and me over these past nine months.

This leads us to verse 5 where we are told that we need not fear in the day or night.  This is easier said than done for many of us.  Fear can destroy us. Doubting worrying and fear play on our minds, making it difficult to focus on anything other than our problems. The psalmist tells us that since we are protected by God we have nothing to fear.  We do not need to fear the attacks in daytime that we can see coming or the attacks at night that catch us off guard. We can take comfort in the fact that 

God is our source of protection.

Verse 6 describes sicknesses and plagues that we need not fear.  I don’t have to fear cancer, chemotherapy or any other sickness because my trust is in Yahweh.

Verse 7 elaborates on that by saying even though thousands around us succumb to the sickness and plagues, we will not.

Verse 8 explains that these sicknesses (plagues and pestilence) are actually judgments sent by God to the wicked. The Psalm does not say that the righteous will never get sick.  It does say however, that we will avoid the judgments that God sends to the wicked.

Verses 9-13

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”

    and you make the Most High your dwelling,

10 no harm will overtake you,

    no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you

    to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;

    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

Starting in verse 9, the Psalmist declares that those who make God their refuge and remain faithful to Him, do not need to be afraid of disasters. The Psalm says we have angels available to protect us. It does not say that each of us is assigned a guardian angel. It just says that at times, God sends angels to protect us.

These verses indicate that God has made provisions for the protection of His people. Many times we do not even see it. I remember one time driving too fast on the snow covered Pennsylvania Turnpike. I was in the passing lane and lost control of the car I was driving. The road was curving to the left, but my car did not respond to my turning of the steering wheel. As I approached the guard rail, suddenly my front wheels caught and I had control of the car again. My first thought was of angels. I don’t know how I was spared from a bad accident, but I gave God the glory.

The lion and the snake mentioned in verse 13 refer to confrontations that are big and bold like a lion or subtle and hard to anticipate like a snake. God protects us from dangers both seen and unseen.

Verses14-16

“14 Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;

    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;

    I will be with him in trouble,

    I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life I will satisfy him

    and show him my salvation.”

In the final verses of this Psalm, Yahweh becomes the speaker. I love that.  Yahweh says that He will rescue and protect us because we love Him and acknowledge His name.

Throughout the Old Testament Yahweh frequently talks about His name. What this means is that He has a reputation. Just like today we think of certain brands of products that have a reputation. God is saying that to acknowledge his name is to know of His faithfulness and His nature – to know who He is.

In verse 15 God, Himself says he will be with us in trouble. It’s comforting to know that He has not deserted us in our troubles or that somehow he is unaware of our situation.

The last verse is a general promise that the righteous can expect God’s provision for a blessed life.

To summarize what this Psalm is telling us:

1.            God is with us in times of troubles and will deliver us.

2.            The wicked will be afflicted and punished but the righteous will not have to go through that.

3.            God’s presence is a place of safety and security to those who remain in Him

4.            We need not be afraid of troubles because God has promised to protect us.

That’s a review of what the Psalm 91 means. I guess there are two reactions to this Psalm. Some, like Joan and me take great comfort in this Psalm. But some people I guess feel there is a disconnect between what they have experienced and what the Psalm says. Some may feel that God has not provided shelter from life’s troubles. Some may feel that God has allowed terrible things to happen to them just like have happened to unbelievers.

Since God and I are battling Stage 4 cancer, I feel I am uniquely qualified to address those who think there is something wrong with this Psalm.

Nowhere in this Psalm does it say that we will not experience trouble. Nowhere does it say that the children of God are not going to suffer. It does promise that God is there for us during these difficult times. Joan and I have experienced this time and time again over the past 9 months. God has walked with us. He has provided for us, sometimes even before we knew we needed something. We have experienced His shelter, His refuge and His rest. We understand what it is like to not be fearful when, sometimes, I can get all worked up over my situation.

There have been many times when we were unhappy with something the doctor said. For example, he said I would have to have chemotherapy every other week for the rest of my life. We were very disappointed when we heard that. Where did we find refuge from the discouragement and fear? In God and His word. The more we focused on Him and His faithfulness to that point in our journey, the less fear and discouragement we felt. In a very short time, Yahweh again became the center of our attention -- not cancer or chemo or life expectancy or any other disappointment.  The more we focus on God and His name, the bigger He becomes in our sight and the smaller our problems become.

By way of illustration, let me tell you about an experience I had just a few weeks ago. We picked up our granddaughter Madeleine in the motorhome and drove to Santa Claus, Indiana. We camped at Lake Rudolph and spent several days at Holiday World.

When we arrived at our RV site, the hook up to the electricity pedestal was a bit different than other campgrounds. Most campgrounds have a pedestal to plug the RV’s electrical cord into that is about 4 feet high. This campground’s pedestal was only about 2 feet high. When I hooked up my surge protector to the pedestal, and then the RV’s electrical cord to the surge protector, the connection was lying on the ground. I didn’t give it much thought until we had been there several nights and it rained.

It rained really hard. It woke me up. After a while I begin to think about this electrical connection lying on the ground. Was it in a hole that might fill with water? Was it even safe to be on the ground as opposed to hanging vertically?

I began to pray. I prayed for safety of my family, for the safety of the motorhome and its electrical system. It kept raining and raining hard. I worried even more about the electrical connection. Then, I began to pray that the rain would stop. I prayed and I prayed that God would cause the storm to blow over. I become more and more upset about the electrical connection and the possible problems that could happen. It kept raining and raining hard. I desperately wanted the storm to stop. It didn’t. 

Eventually I grew tired and fell back to sleep.

When I woke the next morning the storm had passed and everything in the motorhome was fine. When I went out to check on the electric cord, I felt God speaking to me about my frantic prayers the night before.

He said, it did not matter how long the storm lasted or how much rain fell. What mattered is that you made it through the storm. There was no harm to any of you and no harm to the motorhome. We were protected through the storm while I was praying for deliverance from the storm. Again, I understood a valuable lesson. We want deliverance from the storm, God, many times wants to deliver us through the storm.

Storms, the difficult seasons of life push us out of our comfort zones, press us to the edge of ourselves and often begin to produce fear in us because we are forced to recognize we do not possess the resources to meet our needs!  So we pray for deliverance- God, PLEASE get me out of here.  But what if the only way to mature in our faith/confidence in God requires that we go through storms?  It is much like developing a physical muscle requires putting it under a heavy load/strain.  Remember the expression, “No pain, no gain”. It’s true in our walk with Christ as well. What if we recognized that we are as safe in the storm as we are in sunshine when we stand close to the one who is LORD over both types of weather?

It is impossible for any of us to anticipate the many reasons why God may have us go through storms, but here is what I have learned while living in the midst of my personal cancer storm.

Joan and I are much closer to God than we have ever been and we have learned much about running to God as our refuge.

Sooner or later we all go through difficulties in life. We can take refuge in God and be secure or we can run from God blaming Him for

Let’s start with the really good news. On June 9, I had the esophageal stent removed. This was placed back in October in order to help my food advance past the esophageal cancerous tumor. Over time, as the tumor shrunk, the stent began migrating into the stomach.  The doctor who removed it last Friday, looked all around the esophagus and stomach and took a sample of the former tumor area for a biopsy. The doctor told Joan that everything he saw looked to be free of cancer. Today, we got the results of the biopsy which indicates no cancer in the esophagus or stomach regions. Praise God!  He is so good.

Last week, we also received results from the 6/1 CT scans. These are the first scans since I started the maintenance dose of chemo. The remaining tumor did not change in size, so it is still 60% reduced from last October. The tumor that had resolved completely is still gone. Several new spots showed up in the liver.  The oncologist said he was uncertain as to what they are and offered several non-cancerous explanations as to what they could be.  He told us he would watch this very carefully and we should not worry about it.

Of course, we are concerned about the ability of the current regimen of chemo to eliminate the remaining liver cancer. I continue to feel better than I have felt since chemo began. We have so much to be grateful for.

We are currently in Santa Claus, Indiana with our granddaughter, Madeleine. We spent two days at Holiday World from opening to closing of the park. We also spent two days at Lake Rudolf Campground enjoying the activities they offer.

Please continue to pray for complete healing of my liver. We serve a great, big, awesome God. He is more than able to deliver me from this disease. Thank you for your continued support.

I’m sorry for being absent for so long. Some people have asked if my absence is a sign of bad news. No, it’s a sign that we have been busy traveling. On the Monday after Easter we headed to Baltimore in the motorhome to visit with family. Then we returned to Fort Wayne for chemo.

The first week in May we drove the motorhome to Tennessee to visit with friends and then returned to Fort Wayne for chemo. I spoke at church on May 7.

Currently we are in Branson, MO and then we head to Carthage to visit with my son, Shawn and his family. We will return to Fort Wayne on May 23 to get ready for the next round of chemo.

On the nights before chemo and the following two days, it is important for us to be near Parkview Regional Medical Center. Our good friends Jim and Shelley Ohneck have been gracious enough to allow us to park the motorhome on their property. They live just a few minutes from Parkview, making chemotherapy and the disconnect so much easier. We thank God for friends who have helped us.

I feel better than I have since chemo began. Ever since starting chemo last October, my stomach has frequently been a bit queasy. Over the past four weeks, the queasy feeling has gone. My stomach feels normal. Praise God.

I am having some issues controlling high blood pressure and resulting side effects from the medicine to control the blood pressure.

My next scans are scheduled for June 1. This will be  the first set of scans since I started the “maintenance” dosage of chemo. Your prayers for continued healing are appreciated.

On June 9, I am scheduled for a endoscopy to remove the esophageal stent.  It has served its purpose, which was to open the esophagus enough to allow food to pass.  That is no longer an issue, Praise God!  Now, according to my last CT scan, the stent is actually “free-floating” and I actually feel that it sometimes gets in the way of food going down.

Joan and I are enjoying being on the road in our motorhome so much!  We have lots of other trips planned for the summer and fall.

As always, we remain so thankful for all your prayers and words of encouragement.  I simply can't tell you how much it means to me.  There are no words to adequately describe my gratitude.  God is so faithful!  Amen?

Scan Update

Last Friday, 4/7, we met with the oncologist to obtain the results of the scans taken just two days prior. Once again, it was all good news. Praise God for his faithfulness. From the initial scans in October, one tumor is gone, the other has been reduced by 60% and the numerous random lesions are gone. In total, the liver tumors are 78% reduced, based on the way the doctor keeps score.

The esophageal cancer is essentially resolved based on what the radiologist can determine. The thickening of the walls of the esophagus is gone. The stent that was placed in my esophagus is “free floating”, indicating that it is narrower than my esophagus. The stent probably should come out soon, as it appears to no longer serve a purpose. We met with the GI physician’s Nurse Practitioner today and discussed that possibility. We will see.

We continue to praise God for the progress that is being made in defeating this cancer. The love and support from family and friends continues to be overwhelming. Thank you for your prayers. They are making a real difference.

Nobody

Things have been going really well lately. I’ve been feeling well and we are making plans for when we leave the beautiful house we have been living in all winter and take off in our motorhome in mid-April.

On 3/15, I had the last full treatment of chemo. From now on I will be on a maintenance dosage of chemo, which consists of all the drugs I had before, minus what the doctor calls the “nasty drug”. For the past six months, I was able to receive 12 rounds of the full chemo without any reduction in dosages. Praise God!

We had no idea how significant being able to withstand those 12 rounds of full chemo was until 3/15. We had previously been told it was “unusual” for someone to make it to 8 rounds without the chemo being reduced. On 3/15, I asked how unusual it was to make it through the entire 12 rounds without a reduction. The answer was, “Nobody in our study has ever made it to 12 rounds without a reduction. You are the first”.

Nobody! Praise God. How amazing is that? God is so good. Thank you for your prayers.

Today I started the maintenance dose of chemotherapy. With one less drug, we were able to get through the regimen 30 minutes faster. The side effects should be less. We asked the doctor if there would ever be a time when I would end the maintenance chemo. He said that it is too risky to do that because even though the scans may show no evidence of cancer, the cancer is likely always there at the cellular level.  The fact that I will always have to have some sort of chemo does not fit with my plans at all.  But here's the thing...there are worse things than having to have chemo every other week.  We do not know what the future holds. It has always been in God’s hands. We trust Him.

We have a new set of scans scheduled for Wednesday April 5. We are trusting God that no active cancer will be shown on these scans. Please join us in praying for clean scans.

Romans 12:2 part 2. My Journey

Here is the last of the four sermons on Romans 12:1-2. It is my story of my journey through cancer thus far.

Romans 12:1-2 Week 4

If you have your Bible, turn with me to Romans 12.2

While you are turning, I want to preface the message today with a comment:

I love the Old Testament stories of the people God used.  They were flawed just like me. Abraham had difficulty trusting God, so he lied to protect himself and then later felt the need to help God provide him the son God promised him. King David, whom Paul described as “a man after God’s own heart” committed adultery and then killed an innocent man to try to cover up his transgression. I take comfort in the fact that God uses flawed, broken individuals like me. My story is one of God’s faithfulness to Joan and me during this difficult time in our lives. I am nothing special. If you put God first in your life, you too can have a similar story to mine when you go through life’s most difficult times.

Romans12:2  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Today’s message is in three parts: my journey, lessons learned and then answers to a few questions that were turned in.

The Journey

This journey through cancer has been a continual mind-renewing experience.

According to my oncologist, my cancer likely began forming in the esophagus around the summer of 2015. Two significant events happened then, that I think God used specifically to prepare me for cancer.

If you attended this church in the summer of 2015, you might remember that I spoke for five Sundays on the “I am” statements of Jesus as recoded in the Gospel of John.  One Sunday I spoke on the resurrection of Lazarus from John 11. The “I am” statement of Jesus to Mary and Martha is I am the resurrection and the life, whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

Little did I realize that this message was for me.

The major points from my message that day were:

God always knows what is going on.

Jesus was not surprised when he was informed of Lazarus’ illness. We are surprised when we lose our jobs or get a diagnosis of cancer, but God is never surprised.

God always has a plan.

Jesus had a plan for using Lazarus’ death for good. Because He is not surprised, God has figured out how to use these tragedies in our lives for His purposes.

God’s plans always encompass reality.

Our plans never include losing our jobs or getting cancer (which is reality).  Our plans are based on everything always going perfectly, which is not reality. God’s plans include the tragedies that happen as part of living in this messed up world.

God’s plans always encompasses eternity.

Our plans seldom encompass eternity, but that is always God’s main objective. God always takes the long-term, eternal view.

We seldom comprehend God’s plan.

Because we only see what is in front of us, we seldom comprehend what God is trying to accomplish with His plan. Like people watching a long parade through a knot hole in a fence, we fail to see and comprehend God’s big picture.

We can take comfort in these words, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever lives by believing in me will never die”.

For those who are Christ followers, He is there at the end of this life opening the door to a better, eternal life. We don’t ever die.

Again, these words were for me. I hope someone at that time was able to take comfort in them, but they were definitely for me.

Shortly after that something else happened I believe to prepare me for cancer. One day as I was driving listening to the radio. I heard a song called Blessings. It was written and sung by Laura Story. The chorus goes like this:

 ‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?

As I was listening to this song, God spoke to me. He asked if I believed these words. I hesitated and responded with “I don’t like it”. I said, “I don’t like pain and I don’t like suffering”. It was if God was sitting in the passenger seat staring at me waiting for me to come to my senses. I knew the correct answer, but I was stubbornly hoping He would go away. He wouldn’t go and so finally I said, “Not my will but yours be done.” At that point the conversation was over.

Little did I know then what was happening inside my body, but I know now that I was being prepared for the journey of a lifetime. I believe if we are living close enough to God that he does prepare us for difficulties.

As many of you know January through most of April last year we spent in Florida in our motorhome. During that time we were asking God to confirm what we believed He had laid on our hearts. We felt that He was leading us to sell our house and live in the motorhome fulltime. We planned to winter in Florida and spend the summer near Hartford City, Indiana to be near our granddaughter and her parents (you grandparents out there know what I mean right?).

After our time in Florida we were convinced that this plan was of God and we came back to Fort Wayne and started getting our house ready to sell. In June, I began having problems swallowing my food. We were busy with the house and some vacation plans and did not bother to get the swallowing issue checked out right away. It got worse.

We finally put our house on the market at the end of June and anxiously waited. It seemed that it took much longer to sell our house than other houses in the neighborhood. Finally, we got an offer with a closing date of October 7.

On September 30 just one week before closing on our house, a day that I thought was the worst day of my life, I had an upper endoscopy to determine the cause of the swallowing problem. It was esophageal cancer. While I was in the recovery room trying to wake up, Joan was informed of the cancer diagnosis. When she got a few minutes alone she started texting people she knew that were prayer warriors, asking them to pray because I had cancer. Within an hour, Joan got a text from a friend who said, “You don’t have a place to live. Consider staying at our house while we are in Arizona for the winter.”

Now to fully grasp what God was doing here you need to understand that during the next few days as we contemplated this offer of staying in our friends’ house, we did not feel as though it would be necessary. The GI doctor said that I would probably have a surgery to remove the esophageal tumor, radiation and chemo. We envisioned getting the surgery and radiation in Fort Wayne while staying at our daughter’s house and then leaving for Florida and getting chemo down there.

Well that was not the case. A week later we found out that we would need a place to stay in Fort Wayne for the entire winter. God provided a house for us before we knew we needed one. We did not even have time to worry about the lack of a place to live. God provided it in advance. And it is not just any house.  It’s nicer than the one we moved out of. The first time our granddaughter came to visit us in this house she walked from room to room with her mouth open calling it a palace.

God showed us early on that he was with us in the journey.

The Monday after the initial cancer diagnosis, I had a minor procedure to install a stent into my esophagus to open it up so I could get more food into my stomach. As I was being wheeled back to the OR for the procedure, I remember getting a bit depressed. I was on a hospital bed being wheeled down one long hallway after another and then all of a sudden, we made a turn and I could see outside. For a short stretch I could look up into the partly cloudy sky. I cried out to God when I saw the sky and said, “God please give me a sign”. He replied with this, “I will never leave you or forsake you”. That was better than a sign.  He has proven His faithfulness over and over again on this journey.

Friday, October 7, actually was the worst day of my life, so far. We were informed that the cancer was Stage 4 - it had spread to the liver. Surgery was not indicated nor was radiation because of the spread to the liver. We were offered chemo with the possibility of getting into a clinical trial in which we had a 50-50 chance of actually getting the experimental drug.

We were informed that without chemo I had 2-3 months to live. I quickly figured that I would hopefully make it to Christmas and that would be my last Christmas. With 6 months of chemo the doctor said my life expectancy on average would be 1 year. I replied, “One year sounds pretty good.”

We were told that after 2 months of chemo, scans would be taken to determine if the treatment was working, if it was, then chemo would continue for up to six months. If the treatment was not working, there was no value in subjecting my body to chemo. I knew better than to ask what that meant in terms of life expectancy.

I was also informed that this cancer is “incurable”. No amount of chemo will cure me. Medical science is not equipped to heal my body.

After answering all of our questions, the doctor asked what else he could do to help us. I asked him if he would let Joan and I discuss this in private. We both agreed that this felt right. We informed the doctor that we wanted to proceed with him as our oncologist and canceled the appointment we had for another doctor’s opinion. We also informed the doctor that while we had confidence in him, our ultimate trust was in God. He replied, “Faith is good”.

To say our faith was put to the test is an understatement. During this time, I was studying Philippians. I took comfort in Paul’s statement in Philippines 1:21  

Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

This was without a doubt the lowest point of our journey. On top of the very bad news, we were homeless. We spent some time in a hotel when we needed to be near Parkview and some nights in Hartford City with our daughter and her family. Our lives consisted of bad news on top of bad news, which we were trying to process and deal with, constantly moving, trying to keep up with our jobs and not feeling well. . The cancer was beginning to make its presence felt.

One week after meeting with the oncologist I began chemotherapy.

Our friends were close to getting out of their house so we moved in so we could overlap with them for several days to understand what they wanted us to do to take care of their lovely home while they were gone. Knowing we would be at their house on Sunday, they invited us to go to church with them.

I really did not want to go. I really did not want to go to a different church. I wanted to be here with you where I knew there were people who loved and supported us. But I also wanted to honor these wonderful people who were so generous in offering us their house. Feeling like going with them was the right thing to do, I agreed. We had not actually moved all of our clothing into their house. We were waiting until they moved out before we actually moved in. That Sunday I was dressed in the best clothes I had – a golf shirt and dress pants. I had a major wardrobe malfunction just as we getting ready to leave, and could not wear either the shirt or the pants. All I had left were the clothes I have on today.

I came close to playing the sick man card and just saying I didn’t feel well, but again I felt that we should go, despite the way I looked (which I found out was about average for that church we were going to).

Now, I’m reading what Joan wrote in her journal regarding that weekend:

On Saturday, the day we moved into the Miller’s home, we stopped to go for a walk.  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and I remember thinking “It really shouldn’t be this pretty out.  How dare the sun rise!” As we walked along, I began crying, explaining that I felt as if I was in a long dark tunnel, and despite my best efforts, I was completely unable to see the light…any light at all.  If I could just know that the ending we face with Bill’s cancer would be a happy one, I would really be better able to handle all the bad stuff inevitably coming our way.  Bill just burst out laughing at me!  Here I am, crying almost uncontrollably and he starts laughing.  He reached for my hand and said, “Joan, where’s the faith in that?  All of us would trust God if we always knew the outcome!  It’s when we don’t know how things are going to turn out…and we still choose to trust Him…that’s a walk of faith.”  He then stopped walking, turned to me and said, “You want to know if everything is going to be okay at the end of this battle, right?  Well, I can tell you for certain, yes…it will be.  Everything will be okay.  It might not be the outcome you want, but it will still be okay.  In fact, it will be better than okay – it will be great!  Because it’s what God wants to happen.  He is in control.”

I’m still reading from Joan’s journal: We moved into the Miller’s house that day and went to church with them the following day. Imagine our surprise, when the first words out of the pastor’s mouth were “How many of you have ever felt as if you were in a long, dark tunnel and you were just unable to see any light at the end of that tunnel?”  I had just said the same thing to Bill 24 hours earlier!  The sermon was amazing and it became very clear to both of us that we were not there at that church, with those friends, listening to that sermon, all by accident.  It was just the sweetest reminder from the Lord that He understood our worries and concerns and was letting us know that He cares.

During this journey, many people have been praying for us. One of the important things I learned about praying for someone is that it is way more effective when you regularly let that person know you are praying for them. Many times at just the right time I would get a text message or email from someone with just the words, “I’m still praying for you”. Cards are nice but they only come when the mail comes. Text messages and emails seem to come at just the right time.

On December 13 we got word that the scans showed the treatments and God were making a difference in my battle with cancer.

And then as I shared last week, more recent scans showed one of the two liver tumors is gone. The other tumor in the liver is 1/3 gone and the numerous smaller cancer lesions throughout the liver are all gone. The esophageal cancer is about 96% gone. I still have two more rounds of full chemo followed by maintenance chemo which is everything I am currently receiving except one of the drugs is removed. Unless God heals me, I am scheduled for bi-weekly chemo for the rest of my life.

Lessons learned.

#1 Trust in God. In the good times we talk about our faith but in the difficult times we get to walk in faith. Our trust in God is without a doubt what has sustained us. Because our trust is in God and not doctors, chemotherapy, alternative treatments, or anything other than God we only needed to go where we were led. We were led to Parkview for the GI scope. We felt confident in the first oncologist we talked to and then we were done searching for doctors. We did not feel the need to go to Mayo Clinic or Cancer Centers of America. We did not feel that we had to chase after a cure. Our trust is in God, not in man.

It is our belief that our job is to do all that we can and leave the rest to God.

#2 Peace.

Along with trust comes the peace of God which Paul describes in

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In the Western world, we are taught to seek security. We are taught to minimize risks. We insure our cars and homes against loss. We are taught to get good-paying jobs to earn more money so we have a better, more secure life. We are taught to set aside money for life’s unexpected emergencies and then we need to set aside even more money for retirement. What we really want is security. We desire an absence of problems and issues. We want a carefree, stress-free life.

But we can’t insure against everything. I have health insurance. It’s really good insurance, but it only reimburses medical bills. It did not protect me from getting sick. I have life insurance but it will not prevent me from dying. We really can’t protect against the most important risks in our lives – loss of health and life.

We desire an absence of difficulties in this life. We somehow believe that if we eat right and avoid the mistakes others have made then somehow it must be possible to avoid life’s major difficulties. While it is true that some of life’s difficulties can be avoided or delayed based on making good choices, no one escapes this life without some major storms.

In the storms of life, we want the rain to stop. We want the wind and the lightning to cease. We want the pain to stop. We want everything to return to the way it was. We cry out to God to fix it and fix it now.

We cry out to God to stop the storm and sometimes He does. Sometimes, God quickly intervenes and the pain and the discomfort stop. However, sometimes He does not make the storm stop. Sometimes God says, I love you too much to allow you to avoid this lesson or this time of communion that we are going to share together.

I have learned that peace does not ignore the fact that it is raining, the wind is still blowing, and the lightning is still striking all around us.  Peace is knowing that despite the reality of the storm, there is a greater reality and confidence in the One who can calm the storm. Peace is the tranquility to stand in the storm and know without question, that everything will be alright.  

Charles Stanley says that

“peace is the calm assurance that what God is doing is best.”

Peace is not found in the calm. Peace is knowing that Jesus is in the storm with me and being content that He is in control. Real peace is attainable only in Christ. There is no security outside of Him. None. 

#3 Control

Closely related to this concept of risk aversion is the desire to be in control. We want to be in control of our lives. We want to know what we are going to be doing tomorrow and the next day and the week after that. We love our calendars with which we think we are controlling our lives, but control is just an illusion.

We have little control of our lives. In one short conversation with the oncologist nearly every aspect of my life was out of my control. People at Parkview began scheduling appointments for me and no one ever asked when I was available or what time would work best for me. My calendar cleared to make room for whatever they scheduled me for.

I quickly realized that one of the major problems I had with the whole cancer diagnosis was my loss of control. I could not make concrete plans. I hated not being able to think beyond a two week chemotherapy schedule.

The more I thought about it though the more I realized that I was never in control. I thought I was, but the fragile nature of this life and the lives of those we love really makes control impossible. The quicker we accept that only God is in control, the easier it will be to work through life’s difficult times.

#4 Storms and Quiet Times.

Back in December, I met with my colleagues at Indiana Wesleyan University. We had a team-building exercise in which we were asked to, “Share a time when you experienced God in a very special way”. In my group of about 10 faculty, without fail and without prompting, they shared stories (many with a great deal of emotion) of times when they went through very difficult situations. In each case, it was in the lowest part of a valley experience or a major storm that God was most special to them.

In our storm experience, Joan and I have found that quiet time alone with God has become an essential part of our day. We still have many of the same demands on our time as we had prior to the cancer diagnosis. The difference is priorities. Quiet time, alone with God, has become our top priority. In the past I used to fit quiet time around the rest of my life. Now, it begins the day.

When I talk about quiet time, I’m not talking about the shopping list of all the things we want God to do for us. I’m talking about being quiet in His presence, praising Him for who He is, worshiping Him and loving Him.

#5 My last major lesson learned is about preparation.

Several times in Paul’s writings, he compared the life of service to God as a race. A serious runner would never just show up on race day without preparing. Every serious runner has a training program. Have you looked at clothing for runners? It’s extremely lightweight. The serious race is meant to be run stripped of all the unnecessary weight.

In the difficult times of life, we get stripped down to the bare essentials. The difficult times in life are not the times to try and figure out our relationship with God. It’s not the time to develop our personal theology. It’s not the time to try to understand why bad things happen to Christians.

The mountain top experiences, when things are calm, are the times of preparation. The mountaintop is the time to prepare for the next difficult time in our lives. My experience with cancer has been so much easier to handle because of the time I spent in preparation, not knowing what the difficulty would be. My relationship with God was good prior to the diagnosis. My body was in good shape to handle the treatments. The good times should be preparation times, but many times they are not.

When we are on top of the mountain we tend to rely on ourselves and not God as much as we do in the valley. Often times, when we are on the mountain top, we accumulate junk in our lives that ultimately distracts us. In the valley, we strip down to the bare essentials allowing ourselves more time for sweet communion with God that we so badly need.

It’s like the story Jesus told in Matthew 7 of the man who built his house on the rock. We need to build on a rock of good Bible teaching so that we can weather the storms of life. During the storm, it’s a bit too late to be trying to build a relationship with God.

While my story of battling cancer is not over, Joan and I believe that one day I will be cured. We believe that one day the chemo will end because there is no more cancer to kill and no indication of new cancers forming. That’s what we believe. We’ll see. If God has another plan we are prepared to accept that. He has been faithful every step of the way through this journey.  From major things like providing us a house to live in for the winter to some minor issues like getting drugs paid for in some rather unconventional and significantly cheaper ways, God has always provided.

God has promised us in His word and to me specifically that He would never leave us or forsake us. This is the promise that has sustained us through this difficult time. It’s not just a promise, it’s been a reality. He has been there and I know as sure as I’m sitting here today that He will continue to sustain us each and every step of the way.

Several questions were turned in on connections cards. I’ll read and address them.

Question 1: "Have you ever asked God why? 

No, I did not ask God, Why? That’s not because I am some super Christian. It’s because I had this settled prior to my diagnosis. As I mentioned earlier, during the good times in our lives we need to nail down what we believe. The message that I gave in July 2015 did a lot to aid me in developing my personal theology regarding suffering. Now because I did not question God, does not mean that were not a lot of sleepless nights and depressing thoughts. My solution to these was to focus on God and not my problems. In time, I got victory over my thoughts.

Question 2: What would you say to someone questioning faith due to their circumstances?

I believe that my next sermon series will be on suffering. Joan says no one will come. I assure you it will not be doom and gloom. The answer to this question is long and complex and is a sermon in itself. As one who has been through almost 5 months of suffering with no end in sight, short of God completely healing me, I want to avoid sounding trite. Trite answers don’t work for those of us who are suffering. I would encourage anyone who wants the long full blown answer to this question to have coffee with me sometime. I would love to share my complete answer to this question.

The answer to the question Why?, is that we live in this imperfect world. Imagine two workers up on a scaffolding- one is a Christian and one is not. The scaffolding gives way. Gravity takes over and both workers will fall to the ground and be seriously injured. Gravity is no respecter of persons any more than cancer, ALS, or many other of life’s difficulties.

The question really is WHY ME? Why did God allow this to happen to me, a believer?

We search for a reason. If there is a reason, we think, we could handle this difficulty better. The truth is we may never know that there is a reason. If God believes it is important He can reveal a reason to us through the Holy Spirit.

In the essence of time, I’ll cut this short. I think ultimately as we follow the trail of Why me, we ultimately end up asking ourselves. “Why should I serve God if he is going to allow horrible things to happen to me just like everyone else in the world?

If that ultimately is your question, then I have to ask you why you are following Christ.  If it was to escape hell or because you thought you would have a better life here in earth, you picked the wrong reason.  You picked a reason that only serves yourself, not God. If you were following Christ in response to His mercy, grace and love, then I have to ask, what changed? Jesus never promised us an easy life. In fact he promised his followers that they would be persecuted.

Our faith in God must include the belief that God is good and we are loved by Him. He is good based on His definition of good, not ours. We try sometimes to judge God based on a very incomplete view of the world and eternity. We judge God primarily on our self-centeredness not on what God considers important. We try to make sense of this world based on our incomplete view and comprehension, as I said before like someone staring at a parade through a knot hole in a fence.

Faith is built on a relationship with God. We learn to trust him only after we have spent significant time with Him.

This walk of ours is a faith walk.

Hebrews 11:6: And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Last question:  What has God taught you during this experience?

In addition to what I have covered:

1. There is a saying in the cancer community, No one makes it through cancer alone. God desires us to be dependent on each other. There are tremendous blessings available by giving up some independence in order to allow others to minister to us. We get blessed and others who are allowed to minister to us get blessed.

2. We are all equal when it comes to cancer and the other difficulties in life. I see old and young, well–to-do and poor, and people of all colors in the infusion clinic. It’s a snapshot of our broken world. We are all equally broken and in need. If the rich man’s money would save him, Steve Jobs would still be alive.

3. Cancer reminds me of sin.  I want it out of my body. I don’t want to be mostly cancer free. I want to be totally free of cancer. Sin consumes all it possess like an untreated cancer. Don’t allow a little bit of sin in your life any more than you would be happy with a little bit of cancer growing inside of you.

In closing I want to leave you with these words. God is good. God loves His children. He is faithful. Get as close to Him as you can in the good times and hold on tight in the bad times.

Romans 12: 2 part 1

Here is the third of four messages on Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1-2 Week 3

Before I begin this morning, I want to share with you the good news we got this past week.

Back in October, my first scans showed that there were two large tumors in my liver and there were many multiple smaller lesions in the liver.  Now, there is only one tumor and it has shrunk by a third!  The other large tumor is gone!  All of the other multiple scattered cancerous lesions are also gone! 

The doctor said that it is very unusual to see this kind of improvement after only four months of chemo.  He went even further and called my improvement a statistical "outlier", meaning that the results are beyond what the chemo treatments are typically capable of doing.  The CEA tumor marker should be zero.  Last October, mine was nearly 1700.  Now it is 65, a 96% reduction. Praise God!

Thank you for your prayers. Prayer works. Do you believe that? If you are struggling in any area of your life, I encourage you to come forward and be prayed for in the time that is being set aside each week for prayer.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Romans 12. As you are turning I want to remind you that next week, I am going to share my testimony of my journey through cancer. It’s not a story about cancer. It’s a story of God’s faithfulness during a very difficult time in my life. 

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  Verse 2 is where I want us to focus today. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that Paul wrote verse 2 after just telling us that we need to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. As we discussed last week, sacrifice is hard. It is not something we regularly talk or think about. Sacrificing goes against the way our culture thinks. And, I believe, that Paul is telling us that sacrifice is only going to happen when our minds have been renewed.

Paul tells us. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world. The wording would indicate that we must do something to prevent this happening to ourselves. It appears that we cannot be passive in preventing this conforming from taking place

As people who live in this world, we are continually influenced by it.  If you watch television, read a newspaper, use Facebook or surf the internet you are being impacted by our culture to conform to the pattern of this world. Our culture has become pretty much anti-Christian.  Increasingly, it seems that our culture is trying to make us conform to its way of thinking.  Over the past few years Christians have been told by the media and government officials that we need to change our beliefs for the common good.

Researchers tell us that the average American is spending 50 minutes per day on social media and almost 3 hours per day watching television and movies. This, of course, is in addition to whatever time is spent talking to friends and co-workers who are not Christians.

Would you agree with me that the average American is getting a lot of influence to conform to this world?

Then Paul wrote, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Webster defines transformation as a dramatic change in form, appearance or character.

The wording here tells us to be transformed. This implies that the transformation will be done to us and not by us. The tense of the verb indicates that it is an ongoing process. It is not a one-time event that takes place when we are saved.  Instead, it takes time and is ongoing.

And how are we to be transformed?  How is this dramatic change going to take place? By continually renewing our minds. Our thinking has to change in order for the transformation to take place. Our thinking is only going to change when we feed our minds with something other than this world’s culture. The part we play in this transformational process is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit by seeking to feed our minds with information in line with the God’s values and not this world’s values.

The result of this transformation, Paul says, is that we will know what God’s will is. We will have as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:16 “The mind of Christ”. We will be able to discern God’s will for our lives.  We will understand in what ways we need to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice.

We have already stated that the average American is spending almost 4 hours per day on social media, television and movies.  What about average Christians? How much time are they spending in mind renewal activities?

The Evangelical Alliance's study found that evangelical Christians struggle to find the time for both reading the Bible and praying each day. Only 31% said they set aside a substantial period of time each day to pray.  

18% said they do not have a fixed pattern of prayer but rather pray when the chance or need arises. 60% said they prayed "on the move", while walking or using transportation (essentially multi-tasking).

Nearly two-thirds admitted to being easily distracted when spending time with God. 88% agreed it was important for a Christian to read or study the Bible on a daily basis, in practice only half are managing to do this.  

We know how to renew our minds. It takes spending time in prayer, spending quiet time alone with God, reading God’s word, meditating on what we have read, listening to Christian music, listening to Godly preaching and teaching, etc. We know what to do, but we struggle to find time to do it.

Over the years, I too have been guilty of not making enough time for prayer and Bible reading. Fortunately, that changed about 6 years ago, when I started getting more serious about my relationship with God. I am so happy that I did not wait to start praying daily and reading God’s word until I got this diagnosis. My faith and positive attitude are a result of the time I spent with God prior to my diagnosis. As I will discuss next week, how we spend our time when we are not dealing with a crisis is a huge indication of how well we will survive the next crisis.

One of the areas of mind renewal that I would like to discuss today is prayer. Prayer time is essential to mind renewal. Search the Gospels and notice how often Jesus went away to pray. Think about that for a minute, Jesus, the son of God, felt that prayer time was necessary. How necessary is it for us?

Years ago I learned a prayer model that has served me well. You can Google and learn more about it.  It is called the ACTS prayer.

A for Adoration

C for Confession

T for Thanksgiving

S for Supplication

Adoration  -Psalms 68:35 “Praise be to God!” Adoration looks a lot like our worship time here on Sunday morning. It’s a time to praise and exalt God.  It’s a time to tell God how much we love Him. It’s a time to express just how much we appreciate Him.

Confession 1 John 1:9  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” -Confession is a time of reflection and asking for forgiveness. It’s not time to dig up old sins that have been confessed and forgiven. God says they are forgotten and we should forget them too. We should allow the Holy Spirit to direct us in areas of our lives that need fixing.

Thanksgiving  Psalms 69:30 Always “glorify him with thanksgiving” –Thanksgiving  is the time to be grateful for all of God’s blessings. We can thank God for His love, His faithfulness, His patience, His grace and mercy. We should express gratitude for what He’s doing in our lives. We should especially thank Him for answered prayers. If we pray about something and it happens then God deserves the glory and thanksgiving.

Supplication Philippians 4:6“Make your requests known to God.” – Supplication is when we finally bring our prayer requests before God. Not until we have praised and worshiped Him, confessed our faults, and thanked Him for all that He has done for us, are we ready to bring our list of needs and wants to God.

Allow me to talk about how I use this ACTS prayer in my life.

As I spend time in adoration of God, I frequently refer to Isaiah’s description of God on His throne that is found in Isaiah 6. God is high and exalted. He is large and powerful. He is mighty. He is everything that I am not and I believe the more that we picture Him in power and glory, the more likely we are to get our perspective right. The old expression says that “prayer changes things”. One of the most important things that it changes is us. It helps us to renew our minds. Whenever we praise someone, we are lowering ourselves as we lift them up. The more we praise and worship God, the more accurately we see the correct relationship between God and us.

This is a place where you might review the different names God used to describe Himself, such as: El Shaaddai, Lord God Almighty or my current favorite, Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that heals.

I frequently spend time here repeating what the angels in Revelation 4:8 say about God, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.” I consider the attributes of God. He is omnipresent (everywhere), He is omniscient (all-knowing) and He is omnipotent (all powerful).

Adoration helps me keep God and my problems in perspective. I need a really big God to heal me and the bigger God is to me in my prayer time, the greater my faith and the greater the peace that I have.

Since I am need of physical healing, I regularly focus on the God of creation. I remind myself that He took a handful of dirt, fashioned a man and breathed life into him. Surely a God that can create life out of the dirt can heal me of cancer.

Confession for me is a time of reflection and contrition. Obviously, any unconfessed sin needs to be addressed here. But it is also a time to address areas of my life that are not pleasing to God. I allow the Holy Spirit to speak to me about things I need to work on.

Thanksgiving has become a time of remembrance for me. In the 4 ½ months since my diagnosis, we have seen God’s hand at work in so many areas of our lives. In Joshua 4 God commanded Joshua to take stones out of the Jordan River and then build a monument near the river.  God said that when your decedents ask why the stones are there, tell them how your ancestors crossed the river on dry land here and at the Red Sea. We all need a way of remembering God’s past faithfulness to us.

Remembering God’s faithfulness keep us grateful and it gives us hope. We need be grateful to God for all He has done. As parents, we get tired of giving to our children when they act like we owe it to them. God deserves our gratitude.

We need to remember His faithfulness. Thanking Him for past answers to prayer is a great way to remind ourselves of His faithfulness. The God who delivered me in the past is the same God who can and will deliver me in the future.

Supplication for me is praying for my healing and then mostly a list of other people who need healing or salvation.

Some years ago, Steve Jones, the President of the Missionary Church, spoke here on prayer. He encouraged us to think of a heavy object held by a rope. He said our prayers should be like rifle shots at that rope, shooting it from many different perspectives.

With this in mind, my prayers have changed over the past few months from general prayers for my healing to specifics. I pray that God allows me to tolerate the chemo with minimal side effects. I pray that He protects my good cells from the side effects of the chemo. I ask God to destroy every cancerous cell in my body. I pray that He takes away the defense mechanisms that help cancer to resist the chemo. I ask that He take away the cancer’s source of nutrition. I pray that He supercharges the chemo to make it do above and beyond what it is capable of doing. Sometimes I get carried away and ask God to hold the cancer cells’ little mouths open and drown them in chemo.

Cause and effect is almost impossible to prove so I want to tread lightly here. As I stated at the beginning of this message we got some really good news this past week about the reduction of cancer in my body since the initial scans were taken in October and the follow up scans in December. The improvement since the December scans is remarkably better than from October to December. According to Joan’s journal notes, after the scans in December is when my prayers got more specific. I encourage you to pray for specific needs.

When I consider the value of this model of prayer, I think its most important feature is that it gets our supplication in the right perspective. It is only after I have placed God high on His throne and reduced myself to the mere speck of dust that I am, that I am ready to begin asking for things.

Not every time, but frequently, part of my prayer time is quiet time. Sometimes mid-way through a prayer or sometimes when I have finished praying, I spend time just in meditation and reflection. I try to still myself, if possible, and clear my mind of everything.  Sometimes, I can’t, so I allow my thoughts to roam as long as they are focused on God. Sometimes, He speaks to me. Sometimes I feel His presence. Sometimes I get nothing.

In John 10 Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

We learn to recognize the voice of God when we spend time, lots of time, with Him. He speaks through His word. He speaks in our quiet times of meditation and reflection. He speaks through Godly teaching, preaching and music. When God speaks to me, it is generally through scripture or song. If those scriptures and songs were not part of my mind, then I’m not sure I would hear from God.

My challenge today is that we get serious about how much time we spend on activities that can help us to renew our minds and become more like Christ. We can’t possibly counteract hours and hours of TV, Facebook and movie time with a 70 minute church service once a week. We have to be deliberate and intentional about spending time with God.

Have you ever kept track of how much time you spend watching TV, or on social media?  Maybe you should. Many of our phones and tablets will calculate that time for us. I think we would all be surprised just how much time, for example, we spend on social media.

Have you ever kept track of how much time you spend in prayer, Bible reading and other mind renewal activities? Again, if we did I think we would be surprised, but not in a good way, to see that number.

I’m a college professor so I get to assign homework. Our homework for this week is to keep track of at least the time spent on mind renewal activities.  If you also want to track your time on social media and watching TV that’s even better. Next week on the connection card there will be a place to write in how many hours we spent during the week on mind renewing activities. I’m going to do it how many of you will join me?  You can start with 70 minutes on Sunday morning. I pray you have a lot more by the end of the week.