My Glory and the Lifter of My Head

Yesterday I began my second round of chemotherapy. This involves sitting in the oncology ward (comfortably in a recliner seat), while various liquids are fed intravaneously into your arm). The last of the infusions is a substance called cisplatin, which is a highly toxic substance designed to kill all fast-growing cells, which happens include cancerous cells (the intended victims) as well as good cells like blood cells (including the while blood cells that are the frontline of the human immune response system), hair follicle cells, stomach lining cells and other cells that turnover quickly).

As I was preparing to go to the hospital yesterday morning, I was feeling somewhat discouraged - just the normal feeling of being "down" due to the fact that I knew what was going to come. I had been experiencing such high energy levels over the last few days (on Monday night I had taken Jordan and Stephanie out to "Dark Zone" for a game of laser-gun battle games, and we had an absolute ton of fun - despite my legs absolutely aching right now!) Recent blood tests had given me a clean bill of health on all important indicators. My appetite has increased, together with my capacity to eat larger portions - I'm now capable of eating approximately twice as much as I could a month ago, an indication, I believe, of the gradual healing effect from the Lord. I had also been sleeping right through the night for the last several days, which is a wonderful gift from the Lord. But now, despite all these positive symptoms I now had to face a reversal again - increasing fatigue, potention nausea and a general feeling of malaise, which deduce quality of life and can occasionally be debilitating. I wasn't looking forward to this next 10 days, to say the least.

Yet as I had been praying over the last few days as to whether I should continue on the chemotherapy (I have the right to stop the treatment at any time I choose), I felt before the Lord that I should continue. At the end of the second round, I will be having an X-ray and CT scan, which will determine whether there has been any objective improvement in my condition, particularly in tumour size. And so, this next four weeks, for me, has become a focus in faith. I'm asking, seeking and knocking on the door of God's grace, and believing that by the time I have the next CT scan, a miracle will be documented for all to see.

Yet as I sat there in the recliner, with the cisplatin being pumped into my veins, I was talking to the Lord and expressing how discouraged I felt. Anyone who has been ill for a while, like I have, will know what I'm going through. I have hope in the Lord for his total healing, and continue to be encouraged by small injections of health and reversals of the enemy's attacks. But at the same time, there is a longing - an almost desperate, heart-wrenching longing, to see the full healing come about immediately. As Proverbs 13:12 says:"

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

And so this, I guess, is what I was feeling - my heart was feeling sick, due to a continuing deferrment of the hope. Abraham would have experienced this, of course - waiting 25 years for his hope to finally being fulfilled. And so I can learn a lesson from Abraham. In Romans 4:18, Paul writes:

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.'"

After returning home, my parents laid hands on me and prayed for me, and I felt an immediate injection of faith and hope. I then got online and checked out some of my email, and there were so many emails of encouragement, far too many to list here. But one email in particular, from my friend Andrew Wan, stuck out. In his email, he quoted 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 in the Amplfied Bible:

Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.

Paul had every reason to be discouraged, and yet he recognised that there was an inner dynamic which overrode the outer deterioration he was experiencing. This "inner self" was "being [progressively] renewed day by day." And he described his current difficulties as being a "light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour)." What seems eternal (the suffering and difficulties) are in fact momentary, but they are "abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calcuations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!]."

Wow! That's enough to lift anyone out of discouragement! And I realised that what happens at times like this is a change of perspective and a change of focus. When discouraged, my eyes become self-focused and my perspective narrows to my own feelings and circumstances. But along comes the Lord, who lifts me out of such a small package of self-focus and returns my eyes to the eternal perspective. Paul expressed this same technique of comparison (comparing the momentary troubles with the eternal glory) in the verses that proceed 2 Corinthians 4:16-17, again in The Amplified Bible. In 2 Corinthians 4:8-15, he writes very descriptively of the nature of the "momentary troubles" he was in:

"We are hedged in (pressed) on every side [troubled and oppressed in every way], but not cramped or crushed; we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not driven to despair; We are pursued (persecuted and hard driven), but not deserted [to stand alone]; we are struck down to the ground, but never struck out and destroyed; Always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the [resurrection] life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies. For we who live are constantly [experiencing] being handed over to death for Jesus' sake, that the [resurrection] life of Jesus also may be evidenced through our flesh which is liable to death. Thus death is actively at work in us, but it is in order that [our] life [may be actively at work] in you. Yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I have believed, and therefore have I spoken. We too believe, and therefore we speak, Assured that He Who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also with Jesus and bring us [along] with you into His presence. For all [these] things are [taking place] for your sake, so that the more grace (divine favor and spiritual blessing) extends to more and more people and multiplies through the many, the more thanksgiving may increase [and redound] to the glory of God."

In Psalm 3:2-4, David writes:

"Many are saying of me, 'God will not deliver him.' Selah. But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the LORD I cry aloud, and he answers me from his holy hill. Selah."

God has this wonderful capacity to "lift the head" at times of hardship, and what do I lift my head to? I lift my head to set my eyes upon the Lord! It is in times of great difficulty that I discover God as "my glory and the lifter of mine head" (Psalm 3:3, KJV).