Dana's Christian Journey

musings of a thankful cancer survivor

Author: Dana

  • result

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    Dana

    I spend half my hours each day at school teaching seventh grade boys… a great joy. Last week we looked at Paul’s instruction to “honor God with our bodies.” When I asked how we are to do this, I was reminded why it is good to be around kids… they keep it simple: “Don’t do things that are harmful to your body; do things that make your body healthy and strong.”

    If grace involves the truth that ‘God is with us,’ it is natural to wonder what result this has in practical living. God likes simple too: “As I live in you, you will learn to live in Me. I will teach you to avoid those things that harm yourself and others and I will lead you to do good. As you walk in My light, I will shine through you… and others will notice. Your life will reflect My love and I will receive glory.”

    Jesus used the analogy of the Vine and the branches to teach us: “I am the Vine, and My Father is the Gardener… I am the Vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing… Remain in Me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the Vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me… This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples.” (see John 15)

    Thank God for being the perfect Gardener. Thank God for the perfect Vine. Thank God that He produces good results in our lives. Thank God for grace.

    “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good.” Titus 2:11-14

  • grace

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    Dana

    “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Greet Priscilla and Aquilla and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers. The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.” II Timothy 4:17-22

    And this is grace: ‘God is with us.’ If we are His children, the sheep of His pasture… and His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus… then He is with us.

    The prisoner in Rome knew the same Good Shepherd that David sang about centuries earlier: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” Paul testified: “The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.” This is grace.

    “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30)

    When we read Scripture and God’s Word seems to jump off the page and speak directly to our hearts, or when a verse comes to mind that bears truth to our spirits, the Good Shepherd is speaking.

    One August day in 2000 around 4:00 in the afternoon, I heard this: “My grace is sufficient for you.” A couple of hours later my doctor and his wife knocked on our door, came into our home, and shared that I had cancer. To that point, Susan and I had not really considered I had a serious health problem; I had just gone to the doctor to check on aches and pains in my forty-year-old body.

    Now, after dealing with the blood cancer multiple myeloma for fifteen years, I know: “God’s grace is sufficient.” Or to state it another way: “It is enough that God is with us.”

    No matter the prognosis or the challenge or the trial, to know ‘God is with me’ is the grace I need. No one can snatch me out of His possession. This is the Word of the Good Shepherd who knows us and cares for us with loving kindness and eternal power. We are in good hands.

    “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

  • poured

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    Dana

    “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure… Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demus, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments. Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them.” (II Timothy 4:6, 9-16)

    I think if I were Paul I would have asked God a couple of questions: “So Lord, is this the way it was supposed to end? Me sitting in prison with only a few loyal friends, realizing that so many have either deserted or betrayed me? Who is going to want to walk in my path?”

    And God might have replied: “You have been faithful, Paul, to walk Jesus’ path… and that is what you are inviting others to do. Remember, you wanted to know My Son. It is quite a blessing to experience His power, but you also asked to know Him in His sufferings… and there you have found a different type of blessing. You have fellowship with My Son! And just as I poured Him out to the world, so I am pouring Him through you… to those that accept Me and to those who don’t. You’ve followed the Risen One and others have been blessed. Rejoice! You’ll be with Us soon!”

    Oswald Chambers once wrote: “Our Lord’s teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.”

    “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that is from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7-11)

    Quote from “My Utmost For His Highest” by Oswald Chambers; ©1935 by Dodd, Mead, and Company, Inc.; p 508

  • race

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    Dana

    “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.” (II Timothy 4:6-8)

    Since being saved by Jesus on the Damascus road, Paul’s life to the point of his last known letter from a Roman prison looked like an amazing race. He had been given a plan, he had a focus, and he aimed to finish. “God has chosen me to take His Good News to the Gentiles and to share His great love with anyone who will listen.” What a plan the Lord had for Paul! And God knew in advance it would not be easy. “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.” (Acts 9:15-16)

    Paul’s focus was Jesus, his Savior and King. Jesus is what the race is all about; He is the goal. “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith….” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

    The finish is in God’s hands. Paul must have known he was near death as he wrote to Timothy. Many times he had come close to death, but the Lord rescued him. Now, as he sensed his earthly race was ending, there did not seem to be sadness or regret. Instead, there was anticipation of what was to come. “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

    After taking the twenty-first pill of a three-week chemo cycle, I told Susan last week I felt like I had just run a marathon. In fifteen years, this is the ninth major treatment we’ve embraced to combat the blood cancer, multiple myeloma. God has enabled doctors to discover new and different plans of attack, and though there is still no cure, we are thankful for all the progress made. My last treatment was a trial drug that gave me two cancer-free years. I had to get an infusion once a month, which impacted me only a couple of days. I loved that schedule, but as always, the disease figured out a way to resist and the cancer gained the upper hand.

    This new regimen is going to take some getting used to, as it calls for cycles of three weeks on the meds with one week off. I have to focus on the One who endured the cross. The Holy Spirit helps us; I know this full well. He speaks to me through the sleepless nights and reminds me that ‘I can do all things through Christ.’ Jesus also uses members of His Body to encourage and help and strengthen. I don’t think we can run the race alone.

    A dear friend, who endures much more difficulty than me, lives out the practical methods of perseverance. He shows one can truly ‘count it all joy’ in the midst of the trial, knowing that God accomplishes things we cannot see. He not only fixes his eyes on Christ, but he invites surrounding men and women and boys and girls to know that Jesus is real. My friend shows me you can laugh at the pain. This is not being flippant; his pain is real and few I know could endure it, but just as Jesus scorned the shame of the cross for the joy set before Him, so we can remember the promises ahead. Eternal life is to come. “Think about the future! What are we going to be doing two hundred years from now, Dana?” he recently asked. “We can’t imagine what the Father has planned!”

    Let’s run well.

    “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

  • ministry

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    Dana

    “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (II Timothy 4:1-5)

    photoBy birth, Prabhu Das was a dalit, which literally means broken or oppressed. Indian society labels these millions the untouchables, as they are in the caste lower than any other. Growing up poor, Prabhu did not realize anything was wrong until he went to school and found that no one would play with him, sit with him, or talk to him. “Why?” he asked his parents. Then he learned of his unfortunate position in life – a position with no hope or future.

    Rather than just accept his lot, when Prabhu was a teenager, he left home and connected to a criminal organization. As he successfully fulfilled his assigned crimes of theft and violence, he built quite a reputation for himself as one to be feared.

    Then he encountered Jesus. A bold believer planted the truth of the Gospel; then the Good Shepherd made Himself so evident that Prabhu repented of his sins, gave his life to Christ, and turned himself into authorities asking for mercy for his crimes.

    Prabhu found mercy… from God and from man. Now married with two children, he lives in Hydrabad and is a regional director for Mission India. Prabhu has been saved and has been given a ministry to reach the lost. His passion now is to bring the Muslims of his nation to Christ. Prabhu works relentlessly with the ‘joy of the Lord’ as his strength.

    One of Mission India’s effective works involves daily Bible Clubs that help children with their schoolwork while also teaching them about Jesus. Hundreds of thousands of parents have found Christ because their children have come home from Bible Clubs talking about the One who gave His life for us. When parents see positive change in their children, and then learn that Jesus is the reason, they often want to know more. This past year, Mission India has counted over 4000 churches that have been planted because of people coming to Christ through Bible Clubs.

    Susan and I watched a video of a young man eagerly sharing of his ‘privilege’ to serve the Lord by teaching and loving children. After finishing work at 5:30, he drives over an hour through city congestion to reach the Bible Club’s 50-60 waiting children. For an hour and a half, he works with the children, encourages them in their education, sings Christian songs, plays games, and tells everyone about Jesus. He then drives an hour to his apartment and gets the rest he needs for an early rise for the next day’s work. The amazing part of this young man’s ministry is that he gladly follows this schedule five days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year.

    Currently Mission India has over 105,000 Christians waiting to be trained to be a Bible Club Leader in their own village or community. It is as if a new believer says: “I have found true life in Jesus! There are 1.2 billion people in my country, most of whom have never heard the Gospel. Everyone needs to know the truth! Here I am, Lord; send me!!”

    “Since we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others… So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself in Christ, not holding men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For He says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (II Corinthians 5:11, 5:16-6:2)

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