Almost a year ago we were fervently praying for my daughter in law as she was undergoing chemotherapy. We were praying for her healing and for the protection of her child she was carrying from the effects of the chemo. The child was born March and is healthy. As I mentioned a few days ago my daughter in law succumbed to the cancer just before Thanksgiving.
John 6:26 – 27 (here @ Bible Gateway) challenged my prayer for her during that time. I was fervently praying for healing, for protection. As I considered and prayed through John 6:26 – 27, it occurred to me that asking the Lord for what He can do for us in surviving or overcoming the world is in a real sense asking Him for bread that perishes.
Health, healing, earthly prosperity all perish. Regardless of whether a person is healed or not they will eventually die. Whatever prosperity I am able to accumulate will remain here after I go home to be with the Lord.
What does not perish is life from Him, knowledge of Him, and the righteousness that He has given us as a result of being in His presence.
Had the Lord healed my daughter in law, at some point she would still have died. Her daughter, though protected from the effects of the chemotherapy, will, at some point in time, as with all of us, also die.
It became clear working through this that what I needed to pray for my daughter in law was that Christ would be magnified and glorified through her life. That He would be exalted in and through her life, however long it was to be.
In fact that is what happened. Her battle, her attitude through that battle, had an enormous impact on the doctors and nurses that cared for her at MD Anderson this past year. Her life, her struggle, radiated her dependence on Him. That dependence gave her a strength and attitude that drew in those who cared for her.
On the day she left to come back to Tulsa. The staff on the floor came to her room as a group and told her how much she meant to them.
It is that result, the magnification and glorification of our Lord that we should seek. That is the bread that does not perish. The impact of our dependence on the Lord draws others to Him. That is the fruit that remains.
Health, healing, earthly prosperity all perish. Regardless of whether a person is healed or not they will eventually die. Whatever prosperity I am able to accumulate will remain here after I go home to be with the Lord.
What does not perish is life from Him, knowledge of Him, and the righteousness that He has given us as a result of being in His presence.
Had the Lord healed my daughter in law, at some point she would still have died. Her daughter, though protected from the effects of the chemotherapy, will, at some point in time, as with all of us, also die.
It became clear working through this that what I needed to pray for my daughter in law was that Christ would be magnified and glorified through her life. That He would be exalted in and through her life, however long it was to be.
In fact that is what happened. Her battle, her attitude through that battle, had an enormous impact on the doctors and nurses that cared for her at MD Anderson this past year. Her life, her struggle, radiated her dependence on Him. That dependence gave her a strength and attitude that drew in those who cared for her.
On the day she left to come back to Tulsa. The staff on the floor came to her room as a group and told her how much she meant to them.
It is that result, the magnification and glorification of our Lord that we should seek. That is the bread that does not perish. The impact of our dependence on the Lord draws others to Him. That is the fruit that remains.
Great testimony and perspective from God's Word! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post, Mike, refined in the fire you have just experienced. How natural and "easy" it is for me to pray for health/healing, prosperity, deliverance from the fiery trials, etc, of this life.
ReplyDeleteI am recently challenged by a sermon by Chuck Swindol from the life of Abraham and some lessons from Genesis 18 in Abraham's intercession for Sodom. He drew lessons from James 4:3-6.
As I intercede each each morning for my family, and a long list of many friends (formerly including your beautiful and much loved daughter-in-law) I had begun to realize how easily I had been slipping into wrong motives and unbiblical prayers. The Spirit had been whispering, in different ways, "But Chuck, what is My will? What do I want?"
The Lord does not criticize our asking; He didn't Abraham, and I don't believe He does us, either. But I am at this time challenged by two lessons:
1) YOUR will be done; and
2) to expand my list of the things (like His glory)
that I know I can pray in faith that it will be done
(in His way and His time).
And that time may be (way) out in eternity.
Thank you again, dear brother. I continue to pray for you and all your families (on both sides) for His comfort and new glimpses of what it must be like for our Beloveds to be in His indescribable presence....