Imagine for a moment that you are diagnosed with cancer… maybe you are in your early forties, fifties or sixties, maybe even younger. You discover that it is an aggressive metastatic malignant growth and that the cancer has spread well beyond the scope of the resolving power of current medical science.
Many people face this kind of devastation, including many women (at this age) with breast cancer. It breaks the heart of the affected family. If treatment is an option, including for pain relief, we seriously consider it and communicate extensively with the family. Everyone joins in; there is strength in numbers.
I recently freaked out thinking about the possibility that I might have cancer. I considered it daily for a week or more. He made me look at myself and wonder if I felt he was personally ‘ready’ to die. I thought about what I might want to say to my family, my children, my messages to share, if they want.
I couldn’t help but think that perhaps I would entitle my final epitaph with the imperative ‘Investigate the faith’. And the issue is not simply salvation; a life saved for eternity.
For me, it’s mostly about live life well and well in this life. We might think that we are good and have the right intentions. But without faith we cannot approach. We don’t know how far from the right life we are. Until we can think like God more consistently throughout our days, we are a long way from living ‘good and well’. The nature of true salvation is that we only experience this perspective after we have come to right fellowship with God.
I remember a recovery program that I used to be a part of. These people often said, ‘Give your all to this show. [of faith] for three months…’ actually, no one who has given everything has ever regretted it; no one went back to the way it was before. How could they?
When we earnestly pursue a life of faith, sincerely investigating it, we will never go back to that hellish life as it was. Somehow, just knowing something of the preciousness of life, of others, and of an Almighty Sovereign God completely transforms our perspective. Suddenly, life finally starts to make more sense.
My family, while I have time, my prayer is that you, each one of you, will truly, devoutly, and passionately investigate the faith of grace, truth, and light, the faith of the Triune God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the faith that transforms mere existence into life and the life beyond…and continues to do so throughout every day of your life.
Let God make the difference in your life that only he can make.
Copyright © 2009, SJ Wickham. All rights reserved.