I deeply appreciate every prayer and word of encouragement that has been offered in response to my battle with cancer, and let me be the first to say that I hate this cancer and it has upset the applecart of my life like nothing I could have ever imagined.
On the other hand, when I found out I had cancer I came to realize that life up until that point was like living in fantasyland. I had live in relative comfort, peace and prosperity all my life and had never had to face any of the real hard things in life.
This is an unusual situation both geographically. By "geographically" I mean that those of us who are born in America are shielded from the hard things of life that many in our world have to face on a daily basis. We don't have to face poverty and war and death and disease like many in our world do. By "historically" I mean that we live at a time where life expectancies are greater than ever, health is better than ever and so, even here in America, we don't face the same kinds of battles with death and disease that even our forefathers faced.
Because of this we have accomodated our Christian faith to the times in which we live. We have lots of books and seminars that purport to offer Christian perspectives on health and wealth building, on success and things like that. We don't have quite as much to help us prepare for death.
And if some of our Christian forefathers are any indication it could be that the low ebb of Christian devotion and commitment we often see is directly tied to the fact that death is not a daily reality that we confront. Unless we are old, or a soldier in battle, or have a terminal disease, very few of us see death as something that could happen to us. And because of this, we can always wait till tomorrow to get serious with Christ.
This was brought to my attention today as I was preparing my Sunday sermon and reflected on some words from Richard Baxter that I first became aware of when I found out I had cancer. I offer these for your consideration and meditation in the hope that you will seriously consider the brevity of (your) life and let this spur you on to follow Christ today.
Promise not yourselves long life, or prosperity and great matters in the world, lest it entangle your hearts with transitory things, and engage you in ambitious and covetous designs, and steal away your hearts from God, and destroy all your apprehensions of eternity.
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