We’ve talked about it many times, my wife and I. Our parents are alive, and we probably will outlive them, and so dealing with it, we direct our prayers and our lives towards their knowing The Truth (JN 8:32) (JN 14:6). At the end of the day, life is only a fragment of time in the midst of eternity (James 4:14). It’s a place we spend our days worrying and fussing, looking to be satisfied in things that are fleeting, while all the while missing the point that we are under a curse. Yes, it is true, born into a curse despite the beauty we see around.
We live our lives backwards striving to hold onto things that are daily becoming more and more distant. “for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” (1 Tim 6:7). “And the world is passing away along with its desires” (1 JN 2:17). At the end of it all, what matters? Not what is the big question, but what is the big answer?
As I receive that phone call, as I considered the outcome, and as I look into the future, where is my peace? “I may have cancer” mum says, “they have found cancer” mum says, “I am starting chemo” mum says as I’m just about to fly back home from my trip to Liverpool. What now? What’s next? And in considering this, shouldn’t there be pain, hurt, frustration and misunderstanding?
There should, isn’t there always, but there’s not. Even as I first heard from Norma Jean’s own mouth the coming reality, there was more sadness in the fact that she sounded scared than in the reality of what may be before us.
See for me, and perhaps hopefully you, there is an understanding that God is still on the throne today. That He is fully in charge and nothing happens without His allowing it. There is no chance, no luck, no happenstance. God is not accidentally misplacing our lives. Of that you can be sure. He knows! (Lam 3:37) And before God created me or my mother, He knew there would be cancer in our path, He knew there would be sickness in the world, and more importantly He knew He would be the only solution. He designed it that way. (JN 10:10) (JN 8:36) (Rom 10:9).
So, as we understand life, we are born into sin (Psalm 51:5). None of us are good!
Romans 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one;”
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We have all sinned someway against God, by lying, lusting, cheating, disobeying our parents or simply not worshipping Him. (James 4:17)
And if we have sinned once, we are guilty of all sin. (James 2:10).
This is where my peace comes in, this is where I have no option but to turn to The Lord. There is where the promises of God ring true as my wife and I, and others with us, pray for the lost in the world, and the things we all face while here.
Regardless of what you believe, it isn’t a pain issue, a hurt issue, or even a cancer issue, IT’S A SIN ISSUE. We will all stand before The Lord one day (Phil 2:10-11), and we will be judged (Heb 9:27).
In praying for our parents, our goal isn’t just health, and a purposeful life, it’s the Blood of Jesus washing away their sin, and their entering into eternity.
Today I received a phone call from my mother saying she had attended the church we visited together last week together while I was in Liverpool. This week she told me how good the message was and how I needed to hear it. Of all the things I want to tell my mother of loving her, praying for her, and believing for her, the most important and truly loving is that God sent His Only Begotten Son JESUS CHRIST to die on a Cross, to forgive her sins, to be buried, and to be resurrected after three days proving He had defeated death, and that He came to set us free once and for all. (JN 3:16).
Whether myself, my mother or you, our only hope is in Jesus. I love my mum, but Jesus loves her more. †
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
We have the amazing privilege of sharing This Love with with the world, and He Himself has told us to go and said He would go with us (Matt 28:19).
Romans 10:14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.