Yes, I know it seems like a nonsensical title. Our society's fear of cancer has given it a reputation as evil as Hitler, or rape, or maybe mental illness. Well, as nasty as the disease itself may be, God has amazing ways to bring blessing out of pain and despair.
A couple of weeks ago our daughter was diagnosed with epithelioid sarcoma that had metastacized from her foot into a lymph node near her groin. Of course this was a rude awakening for us all and we can only make educated, optimistic guesses right now of how it will end up. So we're just in the early stages of this journey, as we prepare for her first round of chemo treatment. And yet I can see already that God is blessing even in the midst of despair and difficulty. As much as I don't care for rollercoaster rides, I do realize what an instructive word-picture they can be for life. The most terrifying parts can also be the most exhilarating, but only if you have complete confidence in the ride. Everybody's life will have ups and downs of some sort, but the Christian should be able to have a certain confidence in the God into whose hands we have entrusted our souls.
So I'd like to briefly mention two ways that God has blessed me during this time. One was quite expected, and one has been quite a surprise.
The pleasant surprise has been the Children's Cancer Clinic at Blair Batson Children's Hospital (within the University of Mississippi Medical Center). The thought of going into a children's cancer clinic would have struck absolute terror and dread into me before, with thoughts of a hopeless, pitiful, place of desperation. On the contrary, my experience these last couple weeks has been that it's probably one of my favorite two places in Jackson. (The other is Stewpot, in case you're wondering.) The staff are the most wonderful, caring, cheerful, and honest people that I've ever come across in a medical facility. The rooms are a joy to look at, with brightly painted walls, a huge aquarium, nicely laid out seating, and so forth. But most of all, the children themselves are amazing. Although there are some who are clearly having a much more difficult time and nobody is there by their own choice, there is a remarkable strength and innocent joy of childhood that sets the atmosphere. The crying, unruly, and fussy children that show up in other medical facilities don't seem to make it to the cancer clinic somehow. Maybe the presence of cancer in a young family tends to produce a greater maturity, love, and love for life than is typically seen. In any case, I love being there among them, just to smile at them, pray for them, and learn from them. Yes, I actually love the children's cancer clinic.
My other favorite thing so far is the love and support of so many friends and family. Without wanting to be presumptuous or flippant, I can't really say that it surprises me, at least in a general sense. Yes, I do get surprised by some of the specific acts of kindness and support. But I had every confidence that our church and family and friends would be there to help us through this however they could. Whenever I get discouraged by another website quoting statistics and scary experiences, God brings another person to tell me about their experiences in overcoming cancer. I'm amazed at how many people I know have gone through cancer treatment many years ago and have gone on to live healthy lives, or have had close family members overcome cancer. In the vast majority of cases, I had no idea before that they had a cancer story to tell. It was also a blessing during our first four-day hospital stay how many people we came across that we knew, including one of the nurses who was a big help during the first couple days. I need to also mention that Facebook, CaringBridge, and other online ways of staying in touch have been a tremendous advantage for connecting us with friends, family, and even sometimes friends of friends.
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." (Romans 12:12)
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Why Would A Blind Man Want To See?
I've been thinking more lately about the dynamics of how God saves us. Of course there will always be an element of mystery. But at least some aspects have come into a clearer focus for me lately. The age-old debate as exemplified between the extremes of Arminius and Calvin largely hinges on the question of how someone who is spiritually dead in his sins can possibly respond to God's gracious offer of salvation. The applications then become how we should pursue evangelism. Should we pour our heart into passionate pleas, apologetics, and testimonies of how wonderful the Christian life is? Or should we focus instead on praying for God's Spirit to supernaturally and inexplicably draw people to salvation regardless of any direct effort on our part or theirs?
In John 9, we see Jesus healing a man of blindness. What is unique with this miracle is that we are specifically told that the man was blind from birth. I never gave that much thought before. Surely anyone who is blind or otherwise handicapped would desire to be healed, right? Except that: how can the man know that he needs to be healed unless someone has told him that there is a wonderful gift of sight that he has been missing out on for his whole life? Of course he could live in denial of his blindness in spite of how obvious it is to everyone. Or he could refuse to believe that being able to see is really as great as people claim. Or he could determine that sight is an impossible dream that fate has cruelly denied to him and there's no use giving it any further consideration. Since he has never seen before and has no way to verify that "seeing" is real, why would he want to see?
The parallels to our "sin problem" are striking. How can we know that we are separated from God by our sin unless we are told? That knowledge should naturally come from the witness of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and believers (working together). The sinner may of course deny his condition. Or he may determine that it's not really such a big deal and spending eternity with God just doesn't appeal to him that much anyway. Finally, he may be fooled into believing that there's no way that God could redeem someone so worthless. Just as the blind man must be convinced of his handicap and of its remedy, the sinner must be convinced both of his sinfulness and of Jesus' power to save.
How does a sinner reach that point of conviction of sin and hope for salvation? The certain truth is in God's Word. The evidence of it should be witnessed in the lives and words of believers. But the final persuasion on a spiritual level must depend upon the working of the Holy Spirit. As believers, God's work of grace in our lives should be so evident that the natural desire of an unsaved person would be "I want whatever he has". Then we need to be clear in testifying to them that we too once were blind, that God's salvation is available to all, that indeed today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).
The blind man in John 9 not only was convinced that it would be a good thing to be able to see, but he also had a providential encounter with the Lord Jesus. No one that he had met before ever had the power to give him sight. In God's timing, Jesus came to him. Although we are not told much about the man's heart at this time, we can see later that he had a remarkable amount of spiritual maturity when addressing the Pharisees. We also see that he exercised faith by following Jesus' instructions to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, not necessarily an easy matter for someone who was not yet seeing.
However convinced a sinner may be of the Gospel, they will never experience forgiveness and new life without making a conscious choice to follow the Savior. God has given us the free will to choose life or death. So yes, we must do whatever God enables us to bring the plain truth of the Gospel to sinners. We must be fully aware of the role (and providential timing) of the Holy Spirit. And the sinner must ultimately bear the final responsibility for what he does with God's amazing offer.
Pray. Testify. Pray. Testify.
And marvel at God's amazing grace.
In John 9, we see Jesus healing a man of blindness. What is unique with this miracle is that we are specifically told that the man was blind from birth. I never gave that much thought before. Surely anyone who is blind or otherwise handicapped would desire to be healed, right? Except that: how can the man know that he needs to be healed unless someone has told him that there is a wonderful gift of sight that he has been missing out on for his whole life? Of course he could live in denial of his blindness in spite of how obvious it is to everyone. Or he could refuse to believe that being able to see is really as great as people claim. Or he could determine that sight is an impossible dream that fate has cruelly denied to him and there's no use giving it any further consideration. Since he has never seen before and has no way to verify that "seeing" is real, why would he want to see?
The parallels to our "sin problem" are striking. How can we know that we are separated from God by our sin unless we are told? That knowledge should naturally come from the witness of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and believers (working together). The sinner may of course deny his condition. Or he may determine that it's not really such a big deal and spending eternity with God just doesn't appeal to him that much anyway. Finally, he may be fooled into believing that there's no way that God could redeem someone so worthless. Just as the blind man must be convinced of his handicap and of its remedy, the sinner must be convinced both of his sinfulness and of Jesus' power to save.
How does a sinner reach that point of conviction of sin and hope for salvation? The certain truth is in God's Word. The evidence of it should be witnessed in the lives and words of believers. But the final persuasion on a spiritual level must depend upon the working of the Holy Spirit. As believers, God's work of grace in our lives should be so evident that the natural desire of an unsaved person would be "I want whatever he has". Then we need to be clear in testifying to them that we too once were blind, that God's salvation is available to all, that indeed today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).
The blind man in John 9 not only was convinced that it would be a good thing to be able to see, but he also had a providential encounter with the Lord Jesus. No one that he had met before ever had the power to give him sight. In God's timing, Jesus came to him. Although we are not told much about the man's heart at this time, we can see later that he had a remarkable amount of spiritual maturity when addressing the Pharisees. We also see that he exercised faith by following Jesus' instructions to go wash in the Pool of Siloam, not necessarily an easy matter for someone who was not yet seeing.
However convinced a sinner may be of the Gospel, they will never experience forgiveness and new life without making a conscious choice to follow the Savior. God has given us the free will to choose life or death. So yes, we must do whatever God enables us to bring the plain truth of the Gospel to sinners. We must be fully aware of the role (and providential timing) of the Holy Spirit. And the sinner must ultimately bear the final responsibility for what he does with God's amazing offer.
Pray. Testify. Pray. Testify.
And marvel at God's amazing grace.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Hiking the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail
Bit by bit over the last few months, I’ve been hiking and mapping out the Ridgeland District section of the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail. In spite of being the only national scenic trail (out of 11 total) that is entirely on National Park Service land, nobody seems to know about it or hike it. Partly that may be due to it being the most incomplete of the national scenic trails (65 miles out of over 400 miles authorized) and spread out over multiple widely spaced sections. At a little over 25 miles, the Ridgeland section is the longest. It’s also close to the metropolitan area of Jackson (Mississippi, not Tennessee!).
When Helen McGinnis’s book “Hiking Trails of Mississippi” was published in 1994, this section was still under construction and was listed under the tentative name of the Lonesome Pine Trail. I suspect that the name didn’t hold partly because pines are not really the predominant forest type for much of the trail. In any case, what I found was a surprisingly enjoyable trail, with a feeling of remoteness even though closely paralleling the roadway of the Natchez Trace Parkway. In some parts the trail was in quite good condition, while in others it deteriorated to the point of almost being nonexistent. The biggest problem by far was the presence of a lot of fallen trees on the trail. There were also a couple of bridge challenges, some aggressive briars, occasional wet areas, and some open mowed areas that had to be crossed without a trail.
So what were the more pleasant surprises? A feeling of silence and isolation that is hard to come by in Mississippi. In over 60 miles of hiking (going over most sections at least twice) spread over several days, I saw maybe five people on horseback and not one single hiker. Most days I saw no one on the trail. It was apparently by design that this would be the one national scenic trail to give a special focus on equestrian use, to reflect the historic heritage of the original Natchez Trace. But this is one nationally significant trail that I believe I can say is actually in need of more hikers. Only at River Bend (near the middle) and Yockanookany (the northern end) were there trail registers available. I was the first to sign them in over a year!
So why is no one else on the trail? I’m sure that the inability to do loop hikes is a factor for some, though one-way linear hikes are the norm for national scenic trails anyway. Another factor surely would be the lack of dramatic scenery. But the biggest problem is probably that people just don’t know. They don’t know the trail exists, they don’t know what to find on it, and they’re not really sure how to hike it. At least those were some of my excuses over the last few years. About the only reliable information is the NPS website, which only gives the basics. There is no mention of the historic cemeteries, overnight camping opportunities, where to access the trail, or how to follow it. Amazingly, at the north and south ends of the trail there are no signs at all visible from the parking areas to alert anyone to the presence of a trail nearby. And at Upper Choctaw Boundary, there is an interpretive trail that goes within about 20 feet of the (much more enjoyable) national scenic trail, but you have to know where to look to see that the trail is there.
A short distance away from the southern end, the City of Ridgeland and NPS have built a paved multiuse (mainly jogging) trail that is well used and will probably be connected with the national scenic trail soon. Although that could possibly be viewed as an extension of the trail, it certainly does not offer the same type of experience.
When Helen McGinnis’s book “Hiking Trails of Mississippi” was published in 1994, this section was still under construction and was listed under the tentative name of the Lonesome Pine Trail. I suspect that the name didn’t hold partly because pines are not really the predominant forest type for much of the trail. In any case, what I found was a surprisingly enjoyable trail, with a feeling of remoteness even though closely paralleling the roadway of the Natchez Trace Parkway. In some parts the trail was in quite good condition, while in others it deteriorated to the point of almost being nonexistent. The biggest problem by far was the presence of a lot of fallen trees on the trail. There were also a couple of bridge challenges, some aggressive briars, occasional wet areas, and some open mowed areas that had to be crossed without a trail.
So what were the more pleasant surprises? A feeling of silence and isolation that is hard to come by in Mississippi. In over 60 miles of hiking (going over most sections at least twice) spread over several days, I saw maybe five people on horseback and not one single hiker. Most days I saw no one on the trail. It was apparently by design that this would be the one national scenic trail to give a special focus on equestrian use, to reflect the historic heritage of the original Natchez Trace. But this is one nationally significant trail that I believe I can say is actually in need of more hikers. Only at River Bend (near the middle) and Yockanookany (the northern end) were there trail registers available. I was the first to sign them in over a year!
So why is no one else on the trail? I’m sure that the inability to do loop hikes is a factor for some, though one-way linear hikes are the norm for national scenic trails anyway. Another factor surely would be the lack of dramatic scenery. But the biggest problem is probably that people just don’t know. They don’t know the trail exists, they don’t know what to find on it, and they’re not really sure how to hike it. At least those were some of my excuses over the last few years. About the only reliable information is the NPS website, which only gives the basics. There is no mention of the historic cemeteries, overnight camping opportunities, where to access the trail, or how to follow it. Amazingly, at the north and south ends of the trail there are no signs at all visible from the parking areas to alert anyone to the presence of a trail nearby. And at Upper Choctaw Boundary, there is an interpretive trail that goes within about 20 feet of the (much more enjoyable) national scenic trail, but you have to know where to look to see that the trail is there.
A short distance away from the southern end, the City of Ridgeland and NPS have built a paved multiuse (mainly jogging) trail that is well used and will probably be connected with the national scenic trail soon. Although that could possibly be viewed as an extension of the trail, it certainly does not offer the same type of experience.
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