The past month has been heart-rending. 4 cancer cases. It started with one of my church sisters, very active lady, always reaching out to share her faith; we were all shocked when told it had spread into her spine, lungs, and most of her organs at stage 3. After that in quick succession, 3 cases from within my own kindy; 2 of our staff's family members - a husband was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer,and the other a relapse of daughter's leukemia, even after a successful bone marrow transplant and last week, 1 of our very own staff had a breast removed. We pray constantly for them, for healing and that their faith not only remains steady, but will be strengthened even in such difficult to understand circumstances.
Its times like these that make people question the existence of God. If there is a God, He must be good, if He is good, why does He let such lousy tings happen to 'good' people?? And wats so great about this God they call Jesus?? ... see, Christians also suffer the same things other people suffer, Christians also get cancer, they also die wat. Yeah, sure they hold these great healing encounters now and then, and yeah, sure, there miracles of people who get cured, but wat about those who don't?? Wats the big deal about Jesus??
I guess it all depends on what you tink God is there for. If like most, you only want a God who caters to your every whim, fancy and wish, i m afraid Jesus is bound to disappoint. Problem is we tink God 'owes' us - that if we worship Him, He is supposed to give us health, wealth, prosperity and happiness in our lives. So when He doesn't, we shrug and say, heck, i dont wanna God who can't gimme a forever happy life without any problems. But the truth is God doesn't owe us a single thing, we owe Him everything...from each breath that we are breathing now, right down to the tiniest cell in our body. It's all by His grace that we are alive this moment in time. So, big deal? No, being alive is no big deal really, unless you recognize how big a deal it is being dead instead.
That's why we are a big deal to God, becoz He sees how dead in sin many of us really are tho our bodies are alive breathing. That's why His priority is not our physical self; unlike us, He doesn't bother how many white hairs or wrinkles we get, He's doesn't care how much money we have in our bank a/cs, how many degrees we have to our name. Doesn't He care about about our problems? Coz He does, He sees them all; the tears, grief, suffering, anger, despair...in fact He's known it all; when Jesus walked on earth as a man, He went thru all that Himself. Of coz He cares that we hurt, we are struggling, but He's more interested in getting our spirit right with and alive in Him. Becoz even if our body is being wrecked with cancer, even when our world is in a mess, so long as our spirit believes Jesus is the Way, the Life and the Truth, tho we may be crying our hearts out as our boat gets caught up in the storms of this earthly existence, He commands the winds and the waves to be still; He calls fearful hearts to rest in Him who is the Prince of Peace. He who created the heavens and the earth comes with a grand promise; that those who believe in Him shall never perish but have eternal life.
That's the big deal about Jesus. He's bigger than cancer, bigger than tsunamis, bigger than any and all the giants in our lives that we call 'problems'. No, Christians are not exempt from suffering; the only special thing is we have a very real, very beeg God who walks with us thru every trial and leads us all the way to heaven, such that even thru the valley of the shadow of death, we shall not fear. Becoz after all we go thru on earth, we know we shall stand in the presence of God Himself, secure in our heavenly home that is guaranteed to those who would just believe. When we live everyday with the reality of that kind of hope, nothing, absolutely nothing in this world can take us down.
"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want..." Psalm 23
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