My cancer story so far - part 5

One of the things that cancer has done for me so far is give me a new understanding of weakness. 

Over the last few years there has been a "grace revival" in the church through influences such as Tim Keller, Sonship, Scotty Smith, Jerry Bridges, Steve Brown and others. And one of the things that all of these have mentioned is the importance of understanding our own weaknesses as the avenue through which God's grace could flow. And I have fully embraced that and have sought to be weak. The trouble is, now I realize I didn't really have a clue about what I was embracing. 

Embracing weakness was a challenging thought and compelling concept when I thought of it as a kind of metaphorical, spiritual kind of weakness. I could embrace this metaphorical, spiritual weakness as long as I could also remain strong and healthy and competent in the whole of my life. For me it was synonymous with humility, so in other words, I would try to be emotionally, spiritually and physically strong, but just be humble about my strengths. 

Then cancer struck and I also took another look at the classic passage from Paul on weakness - II Corinthians 12:7-10

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I always lifted verse 9 out of the context and thought of the weakness here as a kind of "spiritual" weakness. But after I found I had cancer and started enduring some serious physical weakness I looked at the context more closely and saw that the weakness Paul is speaking of here is physical. It's a "thorn" in the flesh, not a "metaphor" in the flesh. It's a thorn in the "flesh" not a thorn in the "spirit" or the "soul." The weakness spoken of here is, as one commentator says "Paul's term for the frailties of human existence." It is actual frailties, not imaginary frailties of the mind that you know you ought to embrace because you are a Christian, but secretly hope you never have to. The insults and persecutions here are from actual people saying mean things to Paul's face and actually beating him. They aren't feeling insulted and persecuted because someone in Hollywood or the news media that you will never meet face to face said something that offended your sensibilities causing you to feel insulted and persecuted, even though the person you feel insulted and persecuted by doesn't know you exist. 

Before cancer, my main experience of weakness was this metaphorical, spiritualized weakness in the imagination that I knew I was supposed to embrace as a Christian. I was fine with that as long as it never impacted my actual, day to day physical existence. And I do know that, even now I am not experiencing anywhere near the hardship that Paul and millions of other believers have experienced, but cancer has given me a small taste of what I think Paul is saying here. 

There are days when I just can't go, it's an accomplishment to get out of the bed and get down to the couch to sit up for a few hours. A couple of the side effects of some of the medicines I am on is neuropathy of the hands and feet and something called "hand and foot syndrome." With the neuropathy I can't touch anything cold, and with the hand and foot syndrome my fingers get a burning sensation and the skin peels off of them and if it's bothering my feet it's hard to walk. So there are times when I have to have my wife open bottles for me and I can't open the refrigerator without gloves on. And by the way, if you know someone else with cancer you will know that these side effects are minimal compared to what others have endured, so I'm not saying any of that by way of complaint - in fact I feel fortunate that my side effects have been so minimal. But the point I am making is that for the first time in my life I have been given a taste of actual, real-life, real-world weakness, and it's very different from the metaphorical, spiritualized weakness I used to study about and wax eloquent on. 

I'm not ready to claim any great spiritual breakthrough in the sense that I love this and feel all warm and fuzzy about it. There are times when I hate it and resent it. Yet there are other times when I see the hand of God in it. And even when I am in resentment mode I still understand that this is the true meaning of weakness. 

I think I have mentioned this before, but in case I haven't here it goes again - Ed Stetzer says that one of the problems with preachers is that we pastor the church as it exists in our head, not the church that we are a part of in real life. I see an analogy here - I have constructed a form of spirituality in my head, a spirituality of the head where "weakness" was a merely a metaphor. But this real world, physical illness is the stuff of true spirituality. 

In his teachings on the theology of the cross, Luther said that God hides Himself in suffering and I know that He is in the midst of all of this. Christ's sufferings were real, physical sufferings, why should we expect anything different. I had prayed for weakness in the past, and I know that many others who have been influenced by the grace revival of our day have done the same thing. I think this is one of those examples of being careful what you pray for, you might get it, but you might get it in a way that you didn't expect. At the same time, when you get it, you will also get God in a way you didn't expect.