Dana's Christian Journey

The trial drug that was so effective for me last year has not worked well for Barbara, but she is not discouraged. I saw Barbara at our last support group meeting and she encouraged me again with her wisdom and attitude. A native of Jamaica, she shared a difference between her culture and ours.

“I come from a culture where dying is a part of life, so I am not worried. Here, people worry and worry and strive and strive… I think it is killing them.”

I chuckled, knowing that most in the room believe cancer is the main enemy. “How old are you, Barbara?” I asked. “I am 73, almost 74. The Psalm says: ‘The days of our years are three-score years and ten,’ so I feel I’ve had a bonus.” Barbara looks twenty years younger and I think she has unusual peace because she knows God. I must admit that our society hesitates to talk much about death.

Though the apostles did not comprehend, Jesus spoke often of His death… knowing it was a huge part of the purpose of His life. After the resurrection when Jesus restored Peter, He told the apostle that God would receive glory through Peter’s death.

“’I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will lead you where you do not want to go.’ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then He said, ‘Follow Me.’” (John 21:18-19)

Guests at our house sometimes express dismay when we tend to joke about death, but don’t we as Christians believe we will enter God’s presence and be at home with Him? We are to follow the Master as He leads us here on earth and then follow Him to the place He has prepared. He has overcome the world and removed the sting of death! I think He wants us to live with this truth in mind.

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

“’Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” I Corinthians 15:55-58

An enemy of faith is doubt; an enemy of love is self. Interestingly, an enemy of hope is self-doubt.

In self-doubt there is no longer any serious doubt of God. If anything, God is too real. He is far more immense than our puny little selves can cope with. Sometimes we would like to turn Him off, like the television set, but we cannot. Instead we are wholly alive to God; He is more present to us than we are to ourselves. It is not God’s reality we doubt, but our own. We look at the life of Jesus and it petrifies us. We doubt very much we can follow Him or obey Him or in any way please Him, let alone glorify Him and be like Him.

This is the struggle of doubt, and it is the fundamental struggle in the book of Job. Between the lines of every verse we hear Job asking, “With my life in such a terrible mess, is it possible to believe that even now I might be pleasing to God?” This same overwhelming self-doubt is finally and gloriously resolved by the very God whose holiness so overwhelms us. For so simple is His gospel that it asks nothing of us but this: having believed in His Son, we take hold of the hope that, however messed up our lives may be, we are in fact more pleasing to the Father than we can possibly comprehend.

Paul tells us we can rejoice in our sufferings because as we persevere, we eventually reach hope – a hope that does not disappoint. “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” (Romans 5:2-5)

The enemy condemns, shames, criticizes, and uses circumstances to make us believe we are unworthy, incapable, and without hope. Without the Father, Son, and Spirit, the devil’s accusations hold truth… but Jesus has accomplished what none of us could. His righteousness is now our righteousness; His love is now our love; and His relationship with the Father is His gift to all who put their faith in Him. If He tells us to do something, we can do it… no doubt!

Through all Paul’s sufferings, perseverance, and molding of character, he reached the mature place where his hope was totally in Christ… not in his own efforts or possessions or skills. Writing from prison with no trace of self-doubt, he tells the Philippian Christians that through Jesus, all things are possible. What a great message of hope!

“I can do all things through Christ who give me strength.” Philippians 4:13

“My hope is built on nothing less that Jesus blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.” (hymn by Edward Mote)

Quote from The Gospel According to Job, by Mike Mason, ©1994 Crossway Books, p 128