Pastor Dewey Note: This is one of the most powerful posts I have read in my life! It PREACHES! Very powerful! DYNAMITE!
My Journey With Cancer, Part 22 By David Maddox
Last week was my “good week” – far enough away from the chemo infusion that the side effects are minimal and you feel good, can eat and can go out and do things. We had two medical appointments last week. The first was the CAT scan. After that I wrote my family this report:
“Had the CAT Scan yesterday. We will not get the results until we have our meeting with the cancer doctor on the 30th. When we have the results and his conclusions on how to proceed we will let you know. Don’t fear what we may learn whether the report is positive or negative – we are not afraid. This has always been a God thing from the time it was discovered since it was at stage 4 then and I am aware of other people with the same diagnosis who did not survive four months – while we have seen the stories of others in remission for decades. God has been good to us. I feel great during the good weeks and as far as we know the tumor markers are still going down, but have not yet reached the level where the cancer is dead. God has given us peace and we sincerely believe that He will enable us to complete the work He called us to – and that will take many years yet,”
The second was a blood test to see how we are doing in the blood chemistry battle. The report was positive – things are not yet 100% but far above the previous negate levels and acceptable for the next chemo infusion. I am writing this from the chemo infusion room as I receive treatment number nine. We continue to need you prayers. God has been faithful in providing for us during the battle against the intruder within – answering your prayers.
Spiritually God amplified on what He has been showing us for years now – His desire for a more intimate relationship. He reminded me of that special relationship which He had (still has) with Enoch, David and Abraham which has created a passion within to have more intimacy with Him – to be His friend – one who walks with Him – and one who is a man after His own heart.
Scripture tells us that Enoch “walked with God, and he was not, for God to
ok him” (Genesis 5:24). A man who walked with God so close that he did not die. He was taken to Father’s house where they would continue to walk together. How can that be and how did it come to pass. The only suggested answer in Scripture is when the author of Hebrews tells us “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5). All Scripture reveals about how He might have pleased God is that Enoch was bold – he prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 14-15).
Of David it is God Himself who says, “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.” He was obedient, but flawed. David murdered Uriah to cover his sin of adultery with Uriah’s wife. He also angered God by counting all the fighting men causing God to bring a pestilence on His people in which 70,000 died. Yet his heart is revealed in His repentance when he sinned, his acknowledgment that the sin was against God, the acceptance of God’s judgment, and in his desire to build a house for God to glorify Him.
Scripture tells us that Abraham was called God’s friend (Isaiah 41:8) (James 2:23). Through a long life Abraham walked in God’s promise that He would make him a great nation – and that his offspring would be as the number of the stars – that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed – but again, like David, Abraham was flawed. He twice lied about his wife Sarah saying that she was his sister and almost by that act lost her, but God delivered her and returned her to him. He tried to use human logic to provide for the promise to be kept and was rebuked on each occasion. He followed Sarah’s advice and through her slave had a son whose generations would oppose and seek to destroy Abraham’s descendants even down to this day. His actions caused God to test him by commanding him to offer his son – the promised one – as a sacrifice. After he had acted in obedience (immediate obedience and faith that God would raise his son) at the exact moment with knife raised Abraham was about to kill his son as commanded, God stopped him saying, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me” (Genesis 22:12). God then renewed the promise.
My new passion is to somehow walk with God even as Enoch did (not so that I might not die but so that I might experience the joy of intimacy with God) – to be God’s friend like Abraham – and to be a man after God’s own heart like David obeying immediately whatever God asks. In these examples I see one who speaks God’s word boldly while living in the world in God’s presence, one whose heart is to obey whatever God says completely and immediately, and one who though flawed walked in God’s promise prepared to sacrifice anything (even the son of the promise) for God.
Scripture tells us something about how to seek this intimacy with God. God Himself says, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Accordingly seeking God must be a passion – your greatest passion that overrides everything else. As I now understand it now – if I truly desire greater intimacy with God I must live in constant awareness of His presence, constantly in communication with Him (being constantly in prayer as Paul wrote in Romans 12:12), to follow Him as my life verse calls for – “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27), and increasingly be bold to confront sin and share the knowledge of Jesus and the Gospel. For me this will be a process in being for some time. Pray for me and I will share with you what I both learn and experience. Please also pray that God be gracious this week and limit side effects of the chemo and for the doctor to have wisdom as he reviews the recent CT Scan comparison with the April scan and recommends a course of future treatment. Looking for something in the report and recommendation that will bring glory to God – and which will evidence answers to yours and our prayers. May he be given wisdom and recommend nothing outside of God’s will in these circumstances.
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.
