HOW ARE YOU?

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen…”  (2 Corinthians 4:16–18 NIV) 

"How are you?"

That familiar question makes me smile as I consider the possibility of giving a totally honest answer after living with cancer for the last two years.

Many times the question comes from a stranger, such as the waiter who introduces himself at our table in a restaurant. The answer is more about making him feel comfortable than about my current health. So I automatically say, "Fine, thanks," even when I'm not so fine.

When a good friend or family member like my son-in-law asks, "How are you?" I sometimes go for the obvious, smart-alecky answer. "I have cancer," I say with a grin, "but otherwise, I'm great." To that, my son-in-law rolls his eyes and vows never to ask me that question again.

Many times the question comes from well-meaning people who care but don't need a lengthy description or a boring tale of woe. Last week at church, soon after I got home from yet another hospital stay, several people asked, "How are you?"

This is when the question challenges me the most. How do I give a current, appropriately honest answer? After all, when cancer enters a person's life, it changes how she is. I liken it to living within a picture frame with a persistent dark cloud on the horizon. But cancer also brings the odd gift of making today's sunshine preciously important, so that day I answered the question this way: "I'm good for today… and today that's good enough for me."

Next week or next month, the appropriately honest answer might be different, so I ask God's help in seeking the right words.

Father, I want the answer to "How are you?" to point back to You. Please give me the words that reflect my faith. 

-- Carol Kuykendall in “Daily Guideposts 2009”

#6360 

Editor’s Note: For a follow-up to this post, go to https://guideposts.org/positive-living/health-and-wellness/living-longer-living-better/the-amazing-way-this-couple-beat-cancer-together/

VICTORY IN JESUS

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 15:54-57 NIV)

The natives of the Fiji Islands have a hopeless custom known as "calling to the dead."  The one who has suffered the death of a loved one climbs to a high tree or cliff.  He mentions the name of the deceased, then cries out desperately, "Come back!  Come back!"  The eerie echo of grief fills the air.  Those who have suffered the loss of their soul mate, companion, or beloved child can sympathize deeply.

The Christian does not need to climb to the top of a cliff, because Jesus climbed the hill of Calvary.  You don't have to cry out, "Come back!" from a high tree, because Jesus cried out, "Father, forgive them," from a wooden cross.  The resurrection power of Christ over death and hell brings a Christian hope in this life and the life to come.

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in “Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians”

#6348

CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY

“God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”  (Colossians 1:27-28 NIV)

Christ in you means you don’t have to face anything alone. Anything! When you walk into a doctor’s office with more questions than answers, Christ in you is the hope of glory. When you’re sitting at the kitchen table staring at bills that you can’t pay, Christ in you is the hope of glory. When you’re parenting a child who’s breaking your heart, Christ in you is the hope of glory. When you are unseen in your workplace, unappreciated in your home, or feeling unqualified for the next thing that God asked you to do, Christ in you is the hope of glory. When you’ve prayed the same prayer a hundred times and the mountain hasn’t moved, yet, even in that place, Christ in you is the hope of glory. It’s not just a verse. It’s not just a doctrine. It’s not just a hope for someday. It’s a promise for right now and if the fire still is burning, meaning if there is still breath in your lungs, then God is not finished with you yet. 

-- Pastor Larry Frank, Grace Church, Cape Coral, Florida

#6191

RESTING ON THE HEART OF JESUS

“Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord.”  (Psalm 131:1-3 NLT)

If I did not simply live from one moment to the next, it would be impossible for me to keep my patience.

I can see only the present, I forget the past and I take good care not to think about the future.  We get discouraged and feel despair because we brood about the past and future. 

It is such folly to pass one's time fretting, instead of resting quietly on the heart of Jesus. 

-- Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), quoted in “A Guide to Prayer for All God's People” by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck

THE HOPE-FILLED PROMISES OF THE FATHER

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

As we journey through Advent, let us be inspired by Christ's boldness in proclaiming the astounding benefits of participating in the Christian faith. Just as Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well "living water" that quenches the soul and fills the spirit, we too can confidently share the hope-filled promises of the Father with those we encounter.

To those filled with shame, we can declare, "Grace and forgiveness can come your way." <> To those bound up in destructive habits, we can proclaim, "When the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed." <> To the weak, we can offer, "Strength from God, the Strength-Giver can be yours for the asking." <> To the weary, we can assure, "Jesus promises rest for your soul." <> To the poor, we can share the richness of spirit. <> To the lacking, we can promise provision in due time. <> To the grieving, we can extend consolation and comfort. <> To the sick and dying, we can offer the hope of eternal life and an eternal home prepared by Christ.

This Advent season, let us be bold in our faith, sharing these limitless offers with confidence and love. May we be vessels of God's promises, bringing hope and joy to all we meet. 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry, compiled from a variety of sources  

#6002

THE THRILL OF HOPE

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  (Romans 15:13)

"A thrill of hope; the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."  (from “O Holy Night”)

Does Christmas thrill you?

Children get excited at the coming of the season, and often we might feel a bit of a charge through experiencing their amazement, but the chores we go through to provide that for them are often the very things that rob us from knowing the wonder for ourselves. Plan the party, trim the tree, max out the MasterCard, wrap, ship, take a trip. And that's assuming we aren't one of the multitudes who find themselves with a case of the Holiday Blues.

So if Christ's coming into this world offers hope, and hope, as the song says, provides a thrill, how do we locate that experience amid the distraction and disillusionment of December?...

Might the disconnect have something to do with what we're hoping for or expecting? Max Lucado, in his book “God Came Near,” thinks so: "Hope is not what you'd expect; it is what you would never dream. It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming ending… Hope is not a granted wish or a favor performed; no, it is far greater than that. It is a zany, unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and be there in the flesh to see our reaction."  

--  Excerpted from an Advent Devotional by Shawn McEvoy

#6001

EVERY AGE HAS ITS OWN PROBLEMS

The Christian finds himself today thrown into a strange and difficult world, full of peril and anxiety. He knows Christ, he believes in Him, and he cannot forget what Christ has done for him in his own life. On the basis of this knowledge and faith [the Christian] seeks to understand and adjust to the terrible questions and uncertainties of the times. He knows it is unworthy of him as a Christian to bewail his fate and exaggerate the challenges in the midst of which he is thrown. Dangerous world? -- yes. Unprecedented difficulties? -- certainly. Tremendous challenges? -- of course. But God does not love him less, nor has [God] singled him out for trial in a special furnace beyond his power to bear or to subdue. He remembers what Paul told the Corinthians and he understands it to be exactly for him: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it" (I Corinthians 10:13). Every age has its own problems, every age its own burdens and complexities, and throughout man is fundamentally the same, able to know and rest in the truth or to rebel... "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

-- Charles Malik, former President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in “Christ and Crisis,” 1962

#5945

OVER THE WEIGHT LIMIT

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  (Matthew 6:34 NIV)

What we have here may be the most important ammunition of all – a systematic strategy to weed out your worry. Jesus is saying something quite interesting: you won’t sink under the burden of today’s crises, but tomorrow’s agenda puts you over the weight limit. Have you ever tried to carry too many bags of groceries at the same time? After cleaning the eggs from your driveway, you’ll know better – and next time you’ll make two trips instead of one. Jesus tells us to carry today’s bag today and make a fresh trip tomorrow.

Living in the present tense is an art. Do you know someone who’s “not all there,” for his or her eyes are focused on some invisible horizon? This person is preoccupied with absent problems. But have you ever known someone who lives completely in the present? Such people seem lively, full of energy and charisma, and getting their money’s worth out of every new thing that comes along, and you won’t catch them worrying. That’s how Jesus wants us to live -- a day at a time. There’s a reason God placed us within the moment, bracketed away from both the past and the future. They’re both off-limits to us, and we need to post No Trespassing signs. The past is closed for good, and the future is still under construction. But today has everything you need. Come here and make your home. 

-- David Jeremiah in “Keep the Faith: How to Stand Strong in a World Turned Upside Down”

#5943

HOPE FOR TODAY

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”  (Romans 15:13)

Yes, there is hope.  There is hope for the present because I believe the stage has already been set for a new spirit in our nation.

One of the things we desperately need is a spiritual renewal in this country.   We need a spiritual revival in America.  And God has told us in His Word, time after time, that we are to repent of our sins and we're to turn to Him and He will bless us in a new way… And from the Cross, God declares, "I love you.  I know the heartaches and the sorrows and the pains that you feel.  But I love you."…

But now we have a choice: whether to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people and a nation -- or, whether to choose to become stronger through all of this struggle -- to rebuild on a solid foundation.  And I believe we're in the process of starting to rebuild on that foundation.  That foundation is our trust in God…

My prayer today is that we will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around us, and will know in our hearts that He will never forsake us as we trust in Him. 

-- Reverend Billy Graham

#5815