And yet through it all, I am seeing blessings. People continue to shower us with notes of encouragement or with checks. Those who love us are helping us get things in order. While it hurts to finalize things, it gives me peace knowing my wife and kids will be taken care of.

Everything is a gift from God. This life appears to be simply a sequence of blessings prompting a response of worship to God. And so I worship Him through the pain. He shows me kindness.

John Piper says it beautifully in his book on Job:

The Lord has made me drink
The cup of his severity
That he might kindly show to me
What I would be when only he
Remains in my calamity.
Unkindly he has kindly shown
That he was not my hope alone.

God unkindly showed kindness to Job. And He is unkindly showing kindness to me.

God has never promised me tomorrow; but God has promised me eternity.

Thanks again to Adam Kring for making this creation. PS: I beat Adam in H-O-R-S-E while filming this.

Romans 5:3-4 — More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

So: with increased suffering comes increased hope. And hope in the New Testament is the assurance of something not yet fully experienced. Hope is not just wishful thinking. And my hope is increasingly in being healed of this blasted cancer.

I am NOT doing chemotherapy this week. This was a difficult decision to come to, but I have great peace about it. The cancer continues to grow in my abdomen and is getting worse. The chemo drugs are not effective there. So there is no value to my doing chemo. My liver remains dormant, as far as we can tell. Surgery is not an option for my abdomen due to the degraded state of my liver. So this is all to say this: medically speaking, there is nothing more available for me.

But I have hope. Hope of healing. While healing may not be possible with medicine, I remain convinced that healing is possible with God. I am completely under His control and believe that God is in complete control over everything. I would not serve or follow or even believe in a god that was not in complete control over everything.

This upcoming Sunday, my story will be used at NewSpring. I do not pretend to know if or when God would choose to heal me. But this Sunday would be awesome. Please join me in prayer for God to heal my cancer. If you would like to follow along, go to NewSpring’s Web Service at 11:15AM Eastern, 2PM Eastern, or 6PM Eastern on Sunday.

(The last one is not me; someone just referred to me as Socrates.)

I suppose I have always wondered about heaven. What will it be like? There is so much we know about heaven from the Bible and there is so much more that pop culture has added to that. What will it really be like?

But then I got cancer and my life suddenly seemed shorter. What heaven will be like has become somewhat more of a pressing question to me.

I know I am going to heaven because of my belief in Jesus. I believe the Bible to be true; the Bible makes it clear that belief in Jesus as the solution to my sin problem is the only way to get to heaven. So I know I am going — and possibly soon — and who of us about to embark on a voyage does not wish to know something about the destination?

I used to think of heaven as a giant chorale or worship service where we sat around singing songs for eternity. This, selfishly, was not attractive to me. As I study about heaven I realize there are others that think that heaven may be more of a civilization. It may be that there are tasks to be done and we will be given jobs to do. These jobs will be commensurate with our abilities and effectiveness on earth. I find this option far more attractive.

But I realized something the other day: what a selfish moron I am!

I have accepted a free gift of eternal life in the presence of the Creator God and His Son, Jesus, who selflessly sacrificed His own body for my salvation and I am worried if I will have to sing too much?!?

If I am allowed to enter heaven and take one step inside and remain their motionless for all of eternity, that will be more than enough — and certainly more than I deserve. If my time is completely consumed with worshiping God, then I will be content; that will be more than enough. Thanks be to God for the incredible gift of heaven.

God created everything. This creation was ex nihilo, or out of nothing, which is something only God can do.

Genesis 1:1 — In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Everything God created gives glory to God.

Psalm 148
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps,
Fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and maidens together, old men and children!
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted;
His majesty is above the earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints,
For the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the Lord!

As the Creator, God deserves the glory.

Revelation 4:11
Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
To receive glory and honor and power,
For you created all things,
And by your will they existed and were created.

We [humans] are created in God’s image.

Genesis 1:26 — Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Given the above, I have two logical conclusions.

1. We also get to create, except our creation is not out of nothing, but rather only a modification of what already exists.
2. By definition, what we create should then give glory to God.

Because we are created like God, we are all creative — to some degree or another. But, as followers of Jesus, what we create should give glory to God.

If you create because you think the world needs what you create, then you are mistaken. If not another song were to be composed, we would be fine. If not another poem were to be written, we would be fine. If not another painting were to be painted or sculpture were to be sculpted, we would be fine. We do not need more creations.

If you create to expand your name, your influence, your bank account or your future, then please stop. You are probably pushing out mediocre junk. Mediocrity does not give glory to God. And we do not need more of your crap.

I may go so far as to say that if your focus is on creation, you should stop. If your focus, though, is on God and giving Him glory, then creation will exude from you.

Wait

I sit in my room and wait.
I wait to play outside.
To walk across a stream.
To catch squirrels with bait.

I count to ten and wait.
I wait to heal my dad.
To see my mom be glad.
I wait until too late.

I pace my room and wait.
I wait to catch butterflies.
To laugh and shout.
I wait for my fate.

I count sheep and wait.
I hear other kids playing.
I want to join them.
But meanwhile, I wait.

The abdomen, unfortunately, is getting worse. The pain continues to increase and I can feel the concrete-like cancerous mesh as it expands. The only medical treatment for that is a complex de-bulking surgery combined with a brutal injection of hot chemotherapy drugs into the abdomen. That treatment, though, is not an option for me due to the state of my liver. There is no other chemo option for the abdomen. There is no real treatment except to take a variety of pain pills to deal with the pain. Needless to say, I am discouraged about that.

I am discouraged to be sitting in the chemo ward taking drugs that can not and will not make this all better, but rather are just a band-aid. And yet here I sit. I struggled with this decision. But I begged God for clarity and He gave it to me. He told me that this is what I should be doing right now.

The pain in my abdomen is very high. The disdain for chemo is very high. But my trust in God is very high. So even though it doesn’t make logical sense to me why I should be doing this, I do it out of obedience and trust.

Here are some excellent quotes from Axiom that are useful to me in leading others as well as leading myself:

• “Language matters!”
• “Effective consolidation earns you permission to enter yet another season of growth sometime in your future.”
• “Leaders, don’t ever apologize for the strength of feeling you have for the vision that God has put in your life.”
• “Incremental thinking, incremental planning, incremental prayers — it’s the kiss of death.”
• “Nothing is ever lost by leaving room for the surprising and supernatural emergence of a yes.”
• “I want an environment that helps keep blood pressure stable, the nuttiness quotient low, and fire drills and soap operas to a minimum.”
• “Keep the ‘church’ in church work.”
• “If a bunch of smart people who love God, love the church, and love each other will devote adequate time to these problems, there’s no mountain we can’t move.”
• “Stay prayed up, rested up, and committed to entering the tunnel of chaos whenever the Spirit prompts.”
• “Just say it!”
• “Friend, it’s as green as it’s gonna get in our world.”
• “The way I am doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me. Something has to change. Soon.”
• “We have to get better about implementing what we can sustain.”
• “When you have clear, objectified data, you can plan better, you can make better decisions, and you can chart a surer course for your church.”
• “When we are focused on the right mission and have the right people executing roles that are consistent with their gifts and calling, I expect to see a bounce in people’s step, a sparkle in their eyes, joy in their hearts, and energy to spare.”
• “What life are you waiting for?”
• “Never once have I regretted taking the high road.”
• “If you are a serious-minded leader, you will read.”
• “We must fight for excellence because it is excellence that honors God.”
• “Admitting your mistakes says something profound about your basic integrity as a leader.”

Here are a few favorites from 2009:

• Cancer’s Immediate Effect Bolder And More Brazen
• Monopoly Spirituality
• Cancer As Goodness & Mercy
• Do You Do Well To Be Angry
• On Sufficiency

My personal favorite might be the poem I wrote while in the hospital:

• Cancer, Probably; A Poem

Also: the most viewed / shared item is the video that was made:

• Letter To Zac

Glory to God!