Dealing with cancer stinks...but God is glorious.

I have been overwhelmed of late with the devastation that cancer can wreak in the lives of people I know of and people I love. My mother in law is battling 2 kinds of cancer right now. My neighbor and fellow church member has been fighting one of those same cancers for the last 4 years. The son in law of a family at church, a dad in his 30s, has the choice of a radical surgery that by all accounts is a high risk proposition, vs. settling his affairs and preparing to die and leave his wife and littles ones soon (according to the doctor). And of course there are others, more than I could mention in this post.

Now, I'm a pastor, and I believe in healing. I've prayed for it in many cases, even anointing people with oil in the manner described in James 5. I've prayed for each of these people I've mentioned, and the others besides. And there have been a number of occasions where I have seen what I believe to be a divine healing take place. But I know that any healing here is temporary--we still die, unless we are alive when Jesus comes. I also know that God often chooses not to heal even if we ask hard and ask long. That's not because he is evil or unable. We know this so well from Scripture I won't even debate the point.

It is because he allows our fallenness to be felt.

What I mean by that is this: part of what happened when Adam rebelled against God's rule is that the creation was made to rebel against us. The curse twisted the natural realm and brought death into play. If God answered every prayer for healing, or removed every cause for sorrow, we would never know that this was a fallen world and long for something far better.

Now, I know that God also has higher purposes in play that we may not understand. But I am always a little skeptical when someone tries to say, "God gave you cancer so that you..." We just don't know why God has set in motion the events of this life. So, we can trust him, and know his purposes are wise and good, but we don't always understand him or them.

Mankind also is still to exercise our role as keeper of this earth. We still make it yield fruit and exercise dominion over it. That includes research into diseases that we can try to alleviate or eradicate. Our dominion, however, still labors in a cursed world that won't yield easily or predictably to our attempts to regain control.

I can't make sense of the hurts that come most people's way. I can, however, point them to a beautiful God who promises grace in each moment, and a future that can be infinitely better than any present in which we find ourselves. It has been in walking beside those dealing with hardships, like cancer, that I have often been most aware of the God of all comfort.