My Journey With Cancer, Part 13 By David Maddox
The battle against the invader within is back on (Praise the Lord). Last week after the almost eight week break to fight the infection and blood chemistry battle I was enabled to receive chemo and begin again to attack the cancer. For a cancer patient who is battling more than the cancer life is sometimes very strange. Last week the only day that I wasn’t at the chemo doctors or the hospital getting a blood transfusion was Thursday. I was finally disconnected from the pump on Friday and received the white blood cell injection on Saturday so praise God I was disconnected and “free” finally on Sunday. That all seems unreal looking back on it, but God never left me and the time was not wasted. Interestingly on Friday as they took blood to see where we were on the blood chemistry battle when they got the results their response was “impossible” because they were so good. So they did a second test which confirmed the first. Needless to say they have no explanation – but we do. God hears and answers prayer and is still in control – and we believe that this is only the beginning of what He intends to do.
Spiritually it is an exciting time as God is clearly moving mightily to facilitate a revival and awakening if His people are prepared to receive – to be confronted with our sin – to repent and to turn from our wicked ways – that He might heal our land (2 Chronicles 7:14). I know things look dark – particularly with the Supreme Court’s decision – the acts against Believers in some states – the threats against our freedom to truly live as Christians in accordance with God’s word. But then stop for a moment and think back to what the Jerusalem church faced. The law (government and religious) was totally against them. They were persecuted, but the church grew and the Gospel would soon be spread throughout the earth.
Persecution never stops God’s activity. In fact where persecution grows the church explodes as people who claim Christ are sifted so that only the true Believers are willing to continue in the faith. What a good thing it is that the American church is being sifted. We have been so seeker friendly and tolerant of what Scripture calls sin that the weeds seem to outnumber the wheat. What a good thing that it is for God to purify us and require us to choose. Our numbers may decrease – we may even someday be forced out of our buildings and back into homes – but when the remnant allows itself to be revived that final time of awakening when “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 25:14) is next on God’s agenda.
During one of the nights last week God gave me a prayer. “Lord reveal and enable me to accomplish the work that you have given me to do this day that you might be glorified on the earth.” How true that prayer should be for all of us, but how hard it is to walk in. It is day by day in complete dependence on the Lord with no assurance of a tomorrow – and no plan for the future. It is to release yourself to God in what He is seeking to do in you and through you right now – with no thought for a tomorrow. No question that is how we should live so that we miss nothing that God has prepared for us to do. Pray for me as I seek to walk in obedience. This is very un-David like.
This morning God brought me back to Abraham reminding me that his condition in its own way was similar to mine. God made the impossible promise – how would Abraham respond? In Romans we see the summary which answers that question and the assurance that the promise is for us as well. Paul writes, “(A)s it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised. That is why his faith was ‘counted to him as righteousness.’ But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:17-25).
The key for Abraham – even as the key for us – was NOT to focus on the physical, but rather on God’s promise (His call) and on who we know Him to be. It is in the promise and the knowledge of God that we are enabled and can believe – and God delivers just as He promised.
Next Sunday I have the privilege of preaching in a little church in Mesa on my favorite subject – revival. God has given me my outline and identified the passages that I am to use. Please pray that He will complete pouring into me what He wants shared and that next Sunday I will share it exactly as it is given to me. Pray that I be enabled to share – no health issues. Please continue to pray for the blood chemistry war going on in my body and for the fight against the cancer – that God be glorified in how this is resolved – that I be enabled to complete the call He gave us and to which we have surrendered. Thank you for your prayers and for sharing this journey with us. I only hope that you are blessed as you have blessed us.
About David Maddox – After a legal career in both Texas and Arizona that spanned over 40 years as a civil litigator, God called David to leave his law practice and work full time as Discipleship Director for Time to Revive. That call is really the fruit of decades of prayer for revival and teaching God’s Word, writing discipleship materials and seeking to make disciples. David married Janet Whitehead in 1976 and they minister together from their Phoenix home. God has blessed them with four children and thus far seven grandchildren.