daily java

Daily Java:

So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. (Ephesians 5:15-17)

I have always been the kind of guy who liked to be in control, who preferred to be in charge.

It isn’t that I minded taking instruction, or even that it bothered me to be under someone. But if I had my druthers, I would prefer to be in charge. And I especially hate being in a position that causes me to need someone else to help me. It is a helpless feeling I detest.

It is just that I have liked to be able to do things myself. If it was broken, I liked to work on it until I could get it fixed. I recognized that there were things I could do nothing about. If the car was broken, there was generally nothing I could do about that. That was usually out of my league.

Electrical things too. I could fix electrical things only to a point. I know the basics of electrical  knowledge, but only that.  If I came to an stopping point, I had to stop and either get someone else to do it, or just live with the problem.

But I hate living with broken things. Of course, most of the fixing was more of the jerry rig variety. I fixed it but it may not have been the right way. However, it worked.

But I could almost always figure out how to make something work. And if it was borken, I could fix it.

But then things come along that you cannot fix. No matter how hard you may want to, you cannot fix them.

When Ella got MS, there was nothing I could do to help her. With my daughter, she had some problems and there was nothing I could do. I was helpless.

Then comes the ultimate broken thing. I contracted cancer. And I have to have someone else be in charge and help me. I am helpless. If I want to live, and I do, someone else has to take me by the hand and lead me somewhere. I have no control, other than the fact that I could refuse and die.

I hate it. But there are options.

One is that I can rage. I know people who do, that when they discover they have cancer, they get mad and destroy things, they curse and rant and rave. They blame God and the universe and everything else. And in so doing, they show their helplessness strongly. They think they look tragic and sad, looking for sympathy, but they look foolish.

Another is that I can sink into self-pity. I can look tragic and sad, I can cry a lot, I can go about with  black clothing and my hair uncombed and all. Again, I think I look tragic but I don’t. I look foolish when I do this.

The other is that I can accept it. It is not that I want it. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I can recognize that I have no control over it and I can try to make the best of it.

How do you make the best of cancer? A strange question. There is nothing good about cancer. Nothing. There is no beauty, no glory, no majesty. It is ugly and destructive. It is bringing something bad and evil into an otherwise good life filled with the glory of God.

How can I bring something good out of something so bad?

The apostle Paul says this in the passage above. He says to be careful how you are living, not foolishly. When you rage against the storm, when you live a life of anger, you have missed the point of life in Jesus.

In Romans 8:28, again the apostle Paul says And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. The way to make the most of every opportunity, as he said in Ephesians 5, is to recognize what good can come from your trials, your problems.

There is no glory in raging, there is no glory in overwhelming sadness. Of course, there is no glory in cancer either, but glory comes from it, or rather from the way you deal with it.

There is first of all a recognition of the fact that your life is not all that is important in this world. Paramount in this world is the glory of God and his will for you.

While he didn’t send that cancer, nor cause it to happen, he did cause you to happen. And he gave you his grace and his glory to use in showing others his grace and glory. When you accept what has happened and when you give him glory in your life, when the glory of God is seen as greater even then what has happened to you, then you show his power.

He has power over life. It is the kind of power that says, even though I die, I will not despair. And it is the power that says that Jesus is in control. As Jesus himself said: I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. (John 11:26-17)

I cannot be in charge of my life right now, so I gladly give it over to him. It is kind of like the old saying about making lemonade when life gives you lemons. Cancer is the lemons; Jesus is the lemonade.

I cannot fix this, but he can fix me. And I praise him.