Saturday, February 25, 2012

The reason I am writing

I have decided to enter the blogosphere because I found out on February 15 that I have stage three cancer following the removal of a foot of my colon and 46 lymph nodes on February 10.  I will begin chemotherapy on March 6.  My last treatment, if things go as planned, will be August 9.  I am going to write this blog so that my friends scattered around the world can keep track of my progress and pray for me and my family during this time.  I also am writing because I want to reflect on the meaning of this thing, cancer, as well as on the meaning of other things which we all can see. 

I do not claim some special visionary or prophetic power to discern the meaning of things.  I do however believe that the God who has made all things and who rules over all things has chosen to reveal in his written word, the Bible, the meaning of some of the things that we see.  He has not revealed the meaning of all things because he says through Moses: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may follow all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29)."  So there are secret things about which God has not spoken and thus about which we cannot know.  However, he also says, "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Hebrews 1:1-2 ESV)."  The infinite and eternal God has chosen to speak to us in language we can understand so that we can know him and his purposes in his universe. 

So it is my hope that over the coming months (perhaps longer) I can draw attention to the meaning which God has placed in his creation and about which he has spoken in his word.  My prayer is that we together might see that every bush, every event, including my cancer, is crammed with heaven and afire with God so that we might worship the one who has made it all and who rules it all.

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