Facing the Adverse

I've been "offline" for the last week, due to illness. But that doesn't mean I've been "offline" spiritually. Indeed, it's been a very eventful week, one packed with God's grace, and with more than a few lessons learned from the Master.

As you know, the Gospel means the "good news". But that good news is against a backdrop of bad news. It is only when we understand the bad news of our spiritual predicament that we can appreciate and embrace the good news that the Gospel has to offer. That's why understanding that we are a sinner in need of God's grace is the precursor to receiving the grace of salvation. In the same way, it is when we experience the "bad news" of adverse circumstances that we can experience in greater depth the "good news" of God's grace on a daily basis.

On Monday, I began to experience abdominal problems, all the classic symptoms of a bowel obstruction similar to the one that sent me to hospital earlier in January. I immediately began asking the Lord for his help and protection, because the last thing I wanted was to be admitted to hospital again. Yet the symptoms continued to intensify. By Tuesday afternoon, I was unable to eat or drink without immediately bringing it up again, and by the next morning I was seriously dehydrated. At that point, I decided it was wise to go to the hospital, and so on Wednesday morning I admitted myself to Box Hill Hospital.

This was an extremely difficult decision for me to make. As I was preparing to go, Elena came up and hugged me and I began weeping. I was feeling very discouraged (a little of an understatement). "Don't worry," Elena said to me. "God is in control. He is faithful. And this is what faith is all about...facing the tough times with him. Trusting him no matter what."

Elena's words were a great encouragement to me, for in my heart, I felt somewhat abandoned. In John 14:8, during a time of great grief, Jesus encouraged his disciples with these words:

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

The feeling the disciples had at the time was one of abandonment. Jesus had declared that he would soon be leaving them. In John 17:5-7, he had told them:

"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."

It was in response to this "bad news" (that he was going away) that Jesus introduced the "good news" (that he would send another Counsellor - the Holy Spirit). And although they didn't know it at the time, the good news far eclipsed the bad news, for Jesus was bold enough to say, "It is for your good that I am going away!"

But when we are facing the grief of apparent abandonment, it doesn't feel that way. It can actually feel like God has let you down, and that was what I was feeling as Elena got ready to drive me to the hospital. It was not just going to the hospital itself, which seemed like a backward step in my walk of faith, but it was the fear of having to go through what I went through the last time I was in hospital - particularly the insertion of the nasogastric tube, which I must say for me is a fear bordering on outright phobia. Yet as I was being driven to the hospital, I committed everything to the Lord. Despite the negative emotions, I declared that I trusted the Lord - this was quite literally a declaration to God devoid of any emotional foundation. It was faith, I guess, in its purest sense: I have no reason to trust you, Lord, except that you are trustworthy. I have no reason to have faith in you, except that you are faithful. So I choose to have faith in you.

I was admitted to the hospital's oncology wing, and they inserted an intravenous drip (which was a horrific exercise in itself, due to the fact that I was so dehydrated - they had great difficulty find a vein), but eventually I settled in and began getting fluids into my body, which was a big leap forward. I went for a series of X-rays, in order to determine the cause of the problem, and I basically rested the remainder of the day.

That night I couldn't sleep much (probably since they were giving me steroids to help strengthen the stomach and reduce the tumour size). That always disrupts my sleeping patterns. But in the middle of the night, about 3 am I think, I was talking with the Lord and he was reminding me of some of the posts I have written, particularly the most recent one (the last post I wrote before coming into hospital, called "The Jehoshaphat Strategy"). As always, the Lord has a unique timing in the way he shares things with me, and this message from 2 Chronicles 20 was, not surprisingly, in preparation for the very thing I was about to face later in the week!

And so the Lord challenged me to put it into practice. I began singing quietly, worshipping the Lord on my hospital bed. I remember in particular singing that simple but beautiful song, "Exalt the Lord Our God." It goes like this:

Exalt the Lord our God
Exalt the Lord our God
And worship at His footstool
Worship at His footstool
Holy is He
Holy is He

From there, I began to sing another favourite worship song of mine (one that is almost like a theme song for my life). It goes like this:

I lift my hands to the coming King
To the Great I Am, His praise I sing
For you're the One who reins within my heart
(x2)
And I will serve no foreign gods
Or any other treasure
You are my heart's desire
Spirit without measure
Unto you I will lift my sacrifice

If you would like to hear my personal rendition of these two songs, click on the following links:

Exalt the Lord our God
I Lift My Hands to the Coming King

As I sang in simple worship to the Lord, I felt the burden of my grief and the sense of abandonment go (I'd already expressed faith to the Lord, without emotion, but now the emotional element was beginning to catch up with my faith). I felt like I was now putting the Jehoshaphat Strategy into practice - marching out to the face the enemies of fear and abandonment with the worship of God on my lips. And at that point, the Lord began to minister deeply to me. I knew once again, with deep conviction, that God was in charge and that he would pull me through this crisis.

The next day, the X-ray report came back showing no obvious points of blockage (later the doctors determined that there had been a minor obstruction, but that since I had already been fasting for 36 hours prior to coming into the hospital, and with continued fasting while I was there, the blockage had cleared itself naturally - see the Prayer Firewall post, "Update - Bowel Obstruction Cleared" for further details). This was the best news I could have possibly received. It took another 36 hours before I was finally released from hospital, since I had to get back on food and liquid gradually, but eventually I was discharged on Friday evening. What a joy it was to walk out of the hospital back into freedom again!

As always, as we face adverse circumstances we are transformed in the process. This is the nature of the walk of faith, and I definitely experienced it this last week. I can say that the David who came out of hospital on Friday was very different from the one who went in on Wednesday. It may just be little things, but those little things are significant all the same. My faith in the Lord has matured, and this is something I now take with me as I continue to walk this journey of faith.

It's at times of crisis that the word "hope" is particularly important. Rebecca, my sister, shared Psalm 119:49-50 with me, and this really sums up my experience over the last week:

"Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope. My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life."

In Romans 4:18, Paul tells us:

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations..."

That was my experience this week. It was an "against all hope" situation, but within that the Lord challenged me to believe "in hope". This was not a matter of trying to stir myself to "have faith" anyway. It was almost a "what else can I do but believe in you, Lord?" Just like when the disciples experienced the crisis of faith in John 6:60-66, my response was the same as Peter's in verses 68-69:

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

What adverse circumstances are you facing right now? These circumstances - the "bad news" - are the backdrop against which God will reveal the "good news" of his grace and victory. I'm praying that you, like Abraham, will also be able to declare:

"Against all hope, in hope I believe!"