Wagering With Faith

Last time through my thoughts went to how God has been an unchanging, seeking and loving presence in my life for almost thirty years now.. (https://dklegs.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/he-hasnt-changed-maybe-you-have/)

As I closed that blog it struck me how so very different all that was from what some others have come to believe.

At the heart of my differences with those who are convinced there is no God (atheists).. and those who cannot convince themselves there is one (agnostics).. is an insistence that human reason definitively resolve whether or not there is a God.

Many will argue that one can do that.  They point to different ways one can prove that God does exist.  Among the most persuasive is “Intelligent Design”.  One simply has to observe how  our cells, our organs, our bones, our muscles, and even our smallest ligaments and sinews systematically and flawlessly work together, for instance.

I for one think it most reasonable to infer a designer when one observes obviously “Intelligent Design”.  But I think to logically, reasonably, infer something is not necessarily the same as definitively proving that thing.

I was most pleased to discover Blaise Pascal’s precocious thoughts on this very thing one day. I was chasing down a quote attributed to the sage and came upon them in one of his writings.

(https://dklegs.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/sixty-nine-and-counting-what-a-ride-its-been/)

Clearly this giant of a scientist, mathematician, even philosopher, pushed the thinking envelope on all this so very long ago.

This is what Pascal wrote in Pensées, part III, §233..

“God is, or He is not.” To which shall we incline? 

He conceded that in this matter we cannot trust purely in reason.. that reason has its range and limits.  Pascal does not say reason is useless or irrelevant.  In fact he says.. “If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.”

But clearly Pascal says reason cannot decide between “God is, or He is not.”  He says both the existence and non-existence of God are impossible to prove by human reason.   Using reason, he says.. “you can defend neither of the propositions.”   His point is that reason is insufficient to definitively resolve the issue.  

And that, he says, leaves you to wager.. “You must wager” Pascal says..  “It is not optional.  You wager by weighing the possible consequences.  One cannot refuse to participate because he is already “embarked”.  In other words one is already effectively living out the choice; to do nothing is to choose one proposition over the other.

Then he puts it to us clearly.. the wise decision is to wager that God exists, since “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing”.

In other words one can gain life eternal if God exists, but if not, one will be no worse off in death than if one had not believed. On the other hand, if you bet against God, win or lose, you either gain nothing or lose everything.

And really, this is the position God starts with in the Scriptures.  The Bible presupposes, rather than proves God’s existence..

Consider this terse yet all embracing doctrinal statement from the Psalms.. “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Psalm 90:1-2 Nasb).

This clearly tells us God is the only God… “You are God”.  It tells us He is Eternal.. “from everlasting to everlasting”.  It tells us He is the creator, the designer of all the “Intelligent Design” we see around us..  “You gave birth to the earth and the world”.

“A believer accepts one foundational truth.. God.  Everything else flows from that. An atheist or agnostic is unwilling to do this.  As a result he has to accept incredible explanations for everything else” (Seed Thoughts from John MacArthur, Worship: The Ultimate Priority Omf Literature 2012, 5)

How can anyone live like that, I wonder. 

How can anyone who seeks to honestly live with himself do that?

Will Durant, widely called the “the Reluctant Atheist”, was skeptical of all religion.  But note a revealing postscript he left his readers… “The greatest question of our time is whether one can bear to live without God” (Will Durant, On the Meaning of Life , R. Long and R. Smith, 1932, 23).

It might offend some to have life all come down to a wager.  But really, when the Creator left us all free to choose to stand with Him or not, that is what it ultimately comes down to.

It takes a conscious leap of faith to believe. 

But it takes an infinitely far greater leap to deny God than to believe in Him.

I’d like to thank all of you who reached out to send me birthday greetings.  

We were on the way back from Singapore and my phone kept going off, notifying of greetings coming in one after another via sms, email, Facebook, WAYN, etc.  By the time we touched down at NAIA, both my Messages and Email pages had so filled up I had to push looking at the entries to much later in the evening.  The greetings went from simple “Happy Birthdays” to punchy, obviously much thought out messages.

Surprisingly, where before I got many a greeting that chided me for my “rapidly advancing elderly years” this year I didn’t get a single such a one.  Perhaps folks felt it inconsiderate to go there in light of my recent bout with Prostate Cancer.  I thank you all for sidestepping the issue but I assure you I’m well aware that at 69 I may well be in my twilight years.

I know those are morbid, dark thoughts to celebrate a birthday by.  But I think they are not entirely unhealthy.  Going there several days just before led me to revisit why I stand foursquare where I am today.

Almost 30 years ago now I was painfully searching, looking for answers.  And something I was reading all but exploded in my heart.

The essay quoted Blaise Pascal saying..  “There is a God-Shaped vacuum in our hearts.  We futilely try to fill that void with stuff:  toys, gadgets, trophies, titles.  But it simply won’t be filled.  It won’t because only God Himself can fill it.”

I’ve since looked up the text from Pascal myself.  

This is what the sage actually wrote..  “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?  This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”    (Pascal, Pensees #425).

What I had chanced upon was obviously a paraphrase.   Whoever had first made it had transposed Pascal’s thoughts into a stunningly effective word picture.  And that compelling picture brought together all that I had painfully struggled and sorted through in the immediately preceding months.  It ultimately led me to trust all my remaining years to the only one who can fill that void in my heart, God Himself.

I look back now, almost 30 years later and I see the many twists and turns my life has taken.   He’s filled that void through them all.  

He’s been there with me through all the highest highs.  At times He’s led the way, blazing many an extremely risky trail.  At other times He was there but barely in the background, a comforting, encouraging presence cheering me on.

But I’ve come to know Him most in the troughs.  He’s been with me through all those times I was severely discouraged, aimlessly drifting, even feeling lost.  Through all those He’s showed Himself strong, utterly trustworthy.

Looking to fill that void in you?   Look no farther.  He alone can fill it.

Last time through I thought back through to how words written down by 39 different men over 1500 years could possibly be the words of God Himself.   (https://dklegs.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/choose-true-or-spurious/).

At first, the notion seemed ludicrous, hardly something to be taken seriously.  But the more I read the more I realized that’s exactly what Scriptures say.

It is unmistakable.  Over 2,000 times in the Old Testament alone, Scripture declares God spoke what is written within its pages.  The phrase “The Word of God” occurs over 40 times in the New Testament.

The New Testament says it of the Old Testament (Mark 7:13).  It is what Jesus preached (Luke 5:1). It was the message the apostles taught (Acts 4:31; 6:2).  It was the message the Gentiles received as preached by Peter (Acts 11:1).

It was what Paul preached on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:5,7, 44,48,49;  15:35,36). And on his second missionary journey (Acts 16:32; 17:13; 18:11).  And so too on his third missionary journey (Acts 19:10).

Paul was careful to tell the Corinthians he spoke the Word as it was given from God, that it had not been adulterated, and that it was truth (2 Cor. 2:17; 4:2).

No wonder the Bible has provoked so many for so long!  Over the centuries many have followed through what the Roman Emperor Diocletian tried to do in 303AD (https://dklegs.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/god-will-not-be-deterred/)

Many have tried to destroy the Bible. In addition, it’s been denied, denounced, dishonored, disobeyed, and disregarded.

Voltaire, who was most influential in his time, said..  “While it took 12 men to write Christianity up, I will show that it takes but one man to write it down!”  Using his mighty pen, Voltaire wrote furiously against God and the Bible.

Voltaire boldly said that 100 years from his death the Bible would become a dead book.  Yet, just 25 years after his death, the very room in which he made that statement became a Bible storehouse!  And the very presses that had been used to print Voltaire’s writings were used to print Bibles.

Not surprisingly, just before his death, Voltaire said.. “I wish I had never been born!”

In our time, 80,000 Bibles are sold every day.   We shouldn’t be surprised. 

 Listen to what God says of His Word, the Bible..

•  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). 
• “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away”  (Matthew 24:35).
• “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.  The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever”  (1 Peter 1:24-25)

No wonder all these attempts to destroy the Bible, to try and expunge it, to keep it away from men, to undermine, trivialize it have gone nowhere.

However determined, however impassioned, violent or vitriolic these attempts become, they are all futile, destined to fail.  The very God, who created all things, all men, everything we see around us says, without qualification..   “these words are indestructible.    “They will endure forever.. they shall never pass away”.

God looks on and laughs, disdainfully.

Bring them on, He says.. Bring them on.

It’s been almost 30 years now since I first looked at mind-boggling statements made in the Scriptures that were to change the course of the rest of my life.

^{Hebrews 10:10-18} By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all .. ¹⁴ For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.  ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying  ¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them.   After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And upon their mind I will write them,“  He then says ¹⁷ And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. ¹⁸ Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Simply and plainly this says .. (1) Jesus’ Death and Resurrection was once for all.  (2) That one offering was perfect.  And (3), The offering perfected for all time those He calls His own.

If true, then what I had come to believe in all through that point was spurious..  I had come to believe that one either went to be with God in heaven, or was banished to hell depending on how one lived his or her life. This was the bottom line of 16 years of religious instruction, the last five more intensive and rigorous than any of the 11 that came before.

But all that simply couldn’t stand in the searing light offered by Hebrews 10. There it clearly and plainly says one attains heaven based on Jesus’ Death and Resurrection alone.  His Death and Resurrection is both necessary and sufficient.. “perfect for all time”.  It was a once for all event never to be repeated, the only thing necessary to get us to heaven.  It doesn’t depend on anything I’ve done or haven’t done.  It depends entirely on what Jesus did.

The idea is all over Scripture, but nowhere more so than in the Epistle to the Hebrews.  I understood all that.  But I had questions to settle in my mind before I would stake my life here and afterwards on these words. These questions would not be denied.  If I were to live my life according to these words, I had to find the answers.

The most fundamental query was this..  “How did we get these words?  They were obviously written down by several men (39 different authors), and over a long period of time (1500 years).

The question comes down to this.. “How do we know which writings were sacred, inspired by God Himself.. and which ones were not”.  In quest of answers I spent three months researching and studying this very thing.

Here’s what I found out..

Over the centuries, 3 widely recognized principles were used to validate which writings came from divine revelation and inspiration. First, the writing had to have come from a recognized prophet or apostle.  Second, it could not disagree with or contradict previous Scripture. Third, the writing had to have been by consensus after the fact, recognized and accepted as inspired by God Himself.

With regard to the Old Testament..  As for consensus, by the time Christ came on the scene, all books had been written and accepted by the Jews. There are 14 books attached to the Old Testament to this very day in some versions. These are the so-called “Apocryphal Books”.  Interestingly, not one of the New Testament writers cites or quotes from any of these 14 books.  And even more definitively, Jesus too never affirmed any of the 14 (cf. Luke 24:27,44).

As for the New Testament..  The same 3 key tests were just as rigorously followed.   The writings all came from apostles (or from their close associates, as in the case of Mark, Luke, James, and Jude).  Hebrews is the only New Testament book whose authorship is not certain.  But because the content is so in line with both OT and the rest of NT the church council that affirmed and closed the NT canon concluded it was written either by Paul or a close apostolic associate.  And most remarkably, all 27 books of the New Testament have been universally accepted as inspired by God since 350-400AD.

How did we get these sacred words?   Scripture addresses the question directly..   “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God..” (2 Tim. 3:16 Nkjv). 

Peter explained..  “Knowing this, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20-21).

Faced with all this, the choice before me was clear..   Would I take God at His word?  Would I trust everything here and hereafter to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection alone?  Would that alone be necessary and sufficient?  Would I stake my very life on this?

I chose to do that almost thirty years ago.  I haven’t regretted doing so for one minute since.  We each have to make the choice.   For me, it was a choice between spurious and true, a no-brainer. 

I was at the anniversary celebration of this young, vibrant and growing gathering in Singapore.  It was their 7^th year together. 

I was watching their kids up on stage singing, freely talking and dancing with their young bodies.  And I couldn’t help smiling, thanking God for the amazing, wondrous things He has done in seven years. 

There were just a handful of kids, less than 10, some 7 years earlier.  Now a population explosion was upon them, the kids almost filling the copious stage.

The group had the most inauspicious of beginnings.

They came out of a couple of families, some 12 or so people driven to meet and worship together at home by different, mostly unrelated circumstances in their respective lives. 

As friends heard and joined their fledgling gathering, they soon spilled out into a nearby theatre that could seat 70.  Not much later, they moved to a hotel ballroom as their number swelled to well over a hundred. And as more and more joined, they moved to a bigger ballroom in another hotel. 

A year or so later they moved to a theatre complex, where they now meet at the largest of six theatres. 

They are so much a picture, a microcosm of something I have been a part of for some thirty years now. 

That earlier group now number in the tens of thousands, but it too started from just three families. Many from this group in Singapore are 2^nd, even 3^rd gen offspring from those who started some 30 years ago. 

But this Singapore group is also a bit different.  It started up mainly as a group of singles. Young couples were a minority, unlike the earlier one.

They came to Singapore, mostly single professionals in their early to mid-twenties, lured by dreams of quickly building a new, exciting life there.  In seven years many of them had married and started raising families.  They mostly married BFFs from the home country. But some found each other there. 

Together, they are what Singapore so wants of its own.. a smart, aggressive, upwardly mobile lot willing to work hard, to take chances, to risk and innovate wherever life found them. 

And more importantly, only too willing to have kids quickly (unlike many of their Singaporean counterparts).  

Together these young people, they’ve passed tremendous hurdles to get to where they are. 

They mostly piggybacked as guests of a recognized church group in Singapore in the early years, as their application for official recognition by the government languished in the Singapore bureaucracy.

Threatened by probable censure as a rogue gathering, a serious offense in Singapore, they reapplied, not as a church but as a charity.  And they did that at a time when charities were under searing, critical scrutiny because of scandals and financial abuses. 

Amazingly, they were approved in just a couple of months. 

It surprised us all, after all the previous application had been gathering dust for over two years.  But we shouldn’t have been so surprised.  After all they had all been fasting and praying for weeks before that.  

Matthew 16 says this, ever so solemnly..  “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18 Nasb). 

I’ve thought about this long and hard.  Why the metaphor of the “Gate of Hell” itself futilely assaulting the church?  It says there will be forces aligned against this church, extremely menacing and strong forces.  They will be forces from the dark side..  enemies, spiritual forces all bent on harassing, destroying this church at every turn. 

But they won’t succeed Matthew says.  God’s church will not be  “overpowered”.. it won’t, because God watches over it.  When God builds the church, despite seemingly insurmountable odds it will prevail.  However small, however challenged, however improbable, God’s church will prevail.

That has certainly been our experience with the one that similarly started with just three families in the 80’s, some 30 years ago now.  It’s leaders have been savaged as described in Matthew 16.  Some have been taken out of the race, sidelined, wearied by the opposition.  But still the church looks to grow even stronger, larger.

In 303AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued a royal edict demanding that every copy of the Bible be surrendered and destroyed by fire. Then over a burned Bible, Diocletian solemnly built a monument.

And on that monument he had these words inscribed.. “the name Christian is extinguished”. 

Instead, defying all odds that small, marginalized and often brutalized messianic gathering, those “Christians” became the dominant force in the world. 

Twenty some years later Rome, under the emperor Constantine turned away from all its pagan roots and declared itself “Christian”.

God will not be deterred.

He wasn’t deterred in Rome, He wasn’t deterred some 30 years ago.  And very clearly He will not be deterred in Singapore.

He continues to build His church.  And.. “the gates of Hades will not overpower it”. 

I’ve been closely considering an intriguing historical passage in 2 Kings.  It’s about King Hezekiah, who’s become very special to me in recent months.

 2 Kings 10:1-11 (Nasb, abstracts and emphasis mine).  ¹ In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ ”   ³.. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.  ⁴ And before Isaiah had gone out the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁵ “Return and say to Hezekiah.. “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. ⁶ “And I will add fifteen years to your life, and deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria.

⁸ Now Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What will be the sign that the Lord will heal me? ⁹ And Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign.. “shall the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?” ¹⁰ Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to decline ten steps; no, let the shadow turn backward ten steps.” ¹¹ And Isaiah cried to the Lord, and He brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps

Science was to clarify this rather obscure passage thousands of years later.  It happened as NASA’s super computers were tracking a number of its space probes out into the future.  The computers kept crashing, bewildering the techies.

They eventually isolated the problem to a discrepancy in calculated forward time thru the years.  They checked and rechecked their numbers and algorithms.

All that to no avail. They were stumped.

Then someone in the team remembered that God had caused alterations in time here in 2 Kings 20:11.  Desperate, they computed what 10 degrees on a sundial translated to in actual time. And plugging in the number they so derived proved to be the missing time that had been causing the computers to crash!

Obscure Biblical passages don’t often resolve themselves this clearly.  But remarkably this one did, even if almost accidentally.  

Today, as I consider how my own “Hezekiah Journey” is playing out, like Hezekiah I ask.. “Lord, how will I know you’ve healed me?”

It was Sept. 1997, barely three years after my father had died of Prostate Cancer.  My Urologist insisted that we do a repeat PSA Test.  A first test had shown an alarming jump of fully 2.5 points from just six months back.  He advised a repeat test in another 30 days to rule out “other possibilities”.  And later, looking at the almost identical results, he said.. “I’m sorry to put you through the ordeal but the chances that it’s cancer have just jumped and we dare not ignore it”.

He suggested an immediate biopsy of my prostate gland.   It was to be the first of four such biopsies, all of which returned reports of “Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia”.. medical technobabble for “naturally aging male.”  But then again, it also meant “negative for prostate CA”, extremely happy news for me at the time.

Conventional wisdom then said PSA results higher than 4 pointed to Prostate CA and shouldn’t be ignored.  Since then however PSA Testing has become highly controversial, even discredited, some would say.

I was caught in the midst of that controversy.  My Urologist today concedes those first four biopsies were probably unnecessary.  He says I could have been spared both the expense and trauma.  That’s because the PSA scores used to justify the biopsies have today been largely discredited as markers for prostate CA.

But here’s the rub.  Those very same testing processes and PSA scores remain the baseline metrics for those who go through surgical prostate removal or radiation therapy.

My PSA baseline stood at almost 12 when a 5^th biopsy definitively said I have Prostate Cancer on Nov 10, 2012.

It’s been over four months now.  We did a follow up test last week, a month after my 42 days of radiation.  The test came back 0.05!

What does that mean?  My doctors tell me it’s very good news.  The precipitous drop to 0.05 from 12 meant the radiation had done its job.  It’s expected to drop farther in the coming months.  But anything below 1 ng/dl already points to success in eliminating the dreaded virus.  Very good news indeed.

But does it mean a “cure” yet?  They say we won’t know for certain until the lowest number, called the “Nadir PSA”, is reached.  If no increases higher than 0.2 ng/dl are then seen over the following 6 to 36 months it will mean I am “cured”.  It will mean..  I am not just in remission, I am “cured”.

They say that’s how I will know.   Maybe so, but given the controversy that continues to swirl around PSA testing, who really knows?

There really is only one who really does know.   And it is to Him I turn for the answer.

This is what He says in Isaiah 43..   “Thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name; you are Mine!  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.  And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God” (Isaiah 43:1-3 Nasb).

The best part of all that is this.. “O Jacob..  I have called you by name; you are Mine!  For I am the LORD your God”.

It says I stand above this still unfolding PSA testing mess.  I do, because I am His. And He will be with me all through anything I might face in days ahead.

This is why we find those wonderfully endearing words “The God of Jacob” in strategic places in the Hebrew Scriptures.  They are there because God was so very careful to personally, intimately assure and comfort the man (Jacob), not just the nation (Israel).

He hasn’t changed.  As He did then, so He does now.   As He was the God of Jacob then, so He is the God of little old Dennis today.

That’s how I know.  That’s how I will know. 

I’m told my father found his artistic calling as a very young boy.  It would be many more years before his art would mature into oil paintings; works that would eventually express deeply felt thought and emotions Dad found difficult to articulate in spoken or written words.  But indeed, many years later, those artworks would earn him “National Artist” recognition.

My grandmother never tired of telling us about how Dad stoically faced down surgery without anesthesia for pleurisy, or liquid in his lungs.  Grandma said he did that by simply concentrating on drawing what he was feeling while the doctors’ did their thing.

So perhaps it was only natural that Dad would turn to drawing in his last days as well.  He was on his last mile. Multiple tubes ran through his nose and mouth, cutting him off from speaking.  His eyes and limited body language told us he knew the end was near.  But still he reached out by simple drawings.  I’ll never forget one of my very last moments with him.  He looked at me with a clear twinkle in his tired eyes, then drew a little cross on his whiteboard.

Without a word I knew what he was saying.  We had discussed it months before as he headed toward these last days.

The meditation of his heart then was from Psalm 23.. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psa 23:4 Nasb).

We had been studying how the first Christians faced death calmly and without fear.. that they did that because they were certain Christ died their death in their place, for their sin.  That He, Jesus had become their sacrificial lamb.

And even more crucial, that by resurrecting from the dead Jesus conquered death and shares that conquest with all those who were His..  “I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore—it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20 Ncv).

Looking to the uncertain days before him, Dad’s last thoughts were that Christ has conquered death.  And we too with Him.. “Neither death, the present nor the future.. will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38 Niv).

God has put me through the ringer for almost eight months now.  I’ve done all that He would have me do.  I’ve gone through all the medical consultations and protocols; finished all the diagnostic hurdles.  Then He led me to 42 harrowing days, any one of which could have gone south any day, but didn’t.

Now I stand, waiting to hear whether or not I am finally free of the deadly cancer virus in my prostate gland.  I won’t know for sure for  months, possibly even for a couple of years.  But I wait for the day when a nadir PSA result shall say.. “PSA 0.00. Cured, cancer free”.

Meantime, my thoughts are like Dad’s, during those fateful days when we carefully looked at all this.

My deepest fears may yet become reality. But whatever happens, like my Dad, like David, I know this to be true.  My shepherd is with me, He will never leave me or forsake me.

And because He is with me.. “I fear no evil, His rod and His Staff they comfort me”.

I was recently rereading a blog I wrote October 16 last year. https://dklegs.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/fearless-love/.

I wrote it just days after I found out I too had the dreaded virus that eventually killed Dad in 1994.  I was looking at very uncertain days then when I wrote that blog. It was, in many ways a hopeful stab in the dark.

But thankfully, today I have infinitely more reason to say what I concluded then.

And so I shall say it yet again.. this time with infinitely more passion and conviction.. “Fear not, this thing has come from Me”  (1 Kings 12:24 Nasb, personalization mine). 

Fear not, He says.. “I am with you”.

I can do no less. 

In October 2012 I had a big decision to make.  Either I have my prostate gradually irradiated, fried to kill the cancer virus inside or have the whole prostate surgically removed. Differential probabilities of a cure between either one were almost the same.  Too, either choice was minimally invasive, although to different degrees.

But I dared not make this decision myself.  It didn’t get any bigger than this.  So I decided to have God arbitrate the decision.  Last year, on Oct. 30 I wrote a blog called “Connecting the Dots”, published it widely, and asked for prayers to give me Divine Wisdom in making this one.  Turned out that blog had the highest response rates in both FB and WordPress, where I publish my blogs.   Clearly people were storming heaven, asking God to arbitrate.

On my own, I probably would have gone for surgery.   I had a medical plan that would have covered 80% of the costs of robotic surgery.  To go the other way meant I’d have to dig into savings for almost US$ 13k.

But I was deathly scared of radiation.  I had bouts of Acute Urinary Retention in 2009.  My Urologist wasn’t much help.  He could offer no reassurance.  He said yeah, radiation would no doubt inflame the prostate severely.  In English, that meant I might have to stop the radiation treatments any number of times and have a catheter inserted. Just thinking about it made me wince in anticipated pain.

Then, I’ve got to tell you, in the weeks that followed, the decision all but made itself.  Without my telling anyone of my financial need, funds were wired to our account from different people in Singapore; and from benefactors here in Manila.

We ended up covering 75% of the radiation cost.  So we went ahead to see how much it would really cost, all in.  My daughter Janice was with me. She bussed a close friend, a classmate from Med School.  As it turned out he was to be my radiation Oncologist.  Later, we looked at the paper saying how much it would all cost. And guess what? Without prompting he said he was waiving his fees.

And with the waiver, we had all the funds needed all covered.  Talk about God leading and arbitrating decisions in language we all understand.. Money.   Clearly God was saying: radiation, not surgery.

That took care of the choice.  But it didn’t mitigate possible genito-urinary complications.  The only thing I could hang on to was my Urologist’s promise to give me double dose alpha-blockers if and when I began to show acute voiding problems.

I was extremely angsty as we started 42 days of radiation. But I hang on to this one thing. God had surely led us to radiation.  I kept saying to myself.. He was in absolute total control and never makes mistakes.

I finished my last session, the 42nd, yesterday.  And summarizing the 42 days, my Oncologist said this in his report.. “A couple of days of minor, radiation-induced diarrhea and an overactive bladder, but otherwise unremarkable”.

“Unremarkable”.. he had no idea how much I prayed that it would all go unremarkable.  That it would be unremarkable despite the sustained daily radiation, at the highest zap levels administered in all the radiation protocols offered at the hospital.  And guess what?  No complications.. certainly, not the dreaded acute urinary retention I so feared.

I’m actually A-Okay.  In fact many say I actually look better, ruddy cheeks, teenage complexion (minus oil and pimples).  Except for a couple of days, no significant gut problems.

The radiation techs also said they don’t remember anyone sleep right through and even dream during that many rad sessions.  I did, through 80% of them.

And best yet, I experienced no physical radiation fatigue, something the Oncologist said almost everybody gets. 

How do I explain all that?..  It isn’t rocket science.  It isn’t, because..  despite my anxious, fearful heart “The Lord is my Shepherd.  He stayed with me through all those 42 days.  “Even though I walk through the shadow of death, He is with me, His rod and His staff comfort me” (Psalm 23:1,4 Nasb, Personalization mine).

The Lord eagerly desires to show us into His Presence, to show us His Power, dominion and glory, especially when life itself hangs in the balance.  Given my checkered history of AUD’s, to come out of those 42 intense days “unremarkable” God must have had to divinely intervene for me again and again.

He’s done many times in the past, I remember them all so well.  But this one was as big as it gets.

This one was anything but “Unremarkable”.  Thank you Lord.