Radiation Retrospect - Part 4

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Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22^(NLT)

Over the last two months Elizabeth and I have had some extended conversations in our home about the healing process, and what God might be up to in our lives.   Well, by conversation you do know that means my bride is the one holding up most of the spoken stuff, and she then valiantly tries to understand my hoarse whispering.  (I am now known in Brownworth circles as he who is the Hoarse Whisperer.  There are hand signals, darting eyes, interpretive body language, and plenty of Russell’s handwriting to decipher.  It’s becoming an art form. 

Here is the punchline to this past Sunday’s episode:

Me (whispering, eyes darting heavenward):  I just don’t have a clue where this will all lead.

She (eyes trying not to roll as she gets up from the table to switch the laundry):  Well, did you ever think He’s teaching you patience?

Me: (blank half-minute stare off into space, then…) I just wish He’d get on with it!

There is a metaphor in Wilson, the radiation mask, for patience.  Every day when they fastened me to the table with Wilson’s clips, I was not privy to what kind of a session it would be – long, complete with new CT images, or shorter variety of ZAP, sizzle, c’mon preacher, up you go – see ya tomorrow!  It was my job to be silent and patient! 

But short session or long, every day I felt like I was eleven again, sitting in the back seat of Dad’s ’48 Ford:  Are we there yet? 

Patience is not one of those spiritual gifts I’ve yet mastered.  I’m more like our Shih Tzu, Wellie the Wonder Dog; if you want to bathe, brush, give heartworm pills, or check what’s under that mop of hair, well you’d better be ready to do battle; that little man won’t sit still for anyone!  I posted a short video last week (See Wellie’s Miracle here) that shows Gracie, our other mutt, giving Wellie a little grooming session; she had to sit on him to keep him still!

I guess I’m a little too much like Wellie, spiritually-speaking.  I want everything all laid-out beforehand.  I don’t like my plans being changed, no surprises please.  In short, most of the time I am not eleven years old in the back seat of Dad’s Ford, I’m more like six, and squirming out of my mother’s reach because I didn’t want her to zip up my jacket – I’ll do it myself!!!

Perhaps impatience isn’t the best word; maybe the word is will.  Perhaps the trouble with waiting for someone, anyone, and particularly an unseen ONE to unfold a new plan is that I would much rather my will than thy will be done.

And so, the radiation table and Wilson’s ever-loving embrace to pin me to that table have been bad and good.  It’s been bad for the tumor and my sense of being in control.  It’s been good that the impatient preacher had nowhere to go, no options, and that the mask mashed his face so securely to the table that, even if he had a voice, there was no way to open his mouth…

That’s the only way to teach some people the value of patience.

For You Today

Did you ever consider God may really BE getting-on with it when you have to wait? 

And the fact that He is working on teaching you patience is the one thing lacking in YOU being able to get-on with learning to bend your will to His?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work)

Radiation Retrospect - Part 3

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Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22^(NLT)

Yesterday we considered the issue of collateral damage.  In the case of my radiation treatment, there is the fact that some healthy tissue was sacrificed as collateral damage.  This was necessary so as to make sure the doctor got the entire cancer tumor in my throat.  It’s a small price to pay in order to continue living.

We see Jesus’ version of this idea in Mark’s Gospel as he employs the collateral damage concept of sacrificing the physical body part (representing our natural desire to sin) in favor of the real target for humanity:  restored relationship with God for eternity:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands.  Mark 9:43-44^(NLT)

This makes perfect sense in many ways.

·       Diet – say “no” to the éclair; avoid all those despicable me thoughts later

·       Driving – there’s a bunny on the left and a human on the right; you choose to run over the bunny rather than the person

·       Your buddy wants you to play golf, but you’d miss your son’s birthday party…

We call it doing the right thing, this collateral damage stuff.  And it’s pretty easy to recognize, but there is always a cost.

My question this morning is:  Are WE in the crosshairs of God’s collateral damage? 

Is it ever a reality that God gets pushed into some cosmic corner with all that goes on, so that, in order to accomplish His divine will God must do harm to an innocent person, in order to bring about the most good for the largest number of people?  Does God ever employ the end justifies the means in His conduct of the universe?   

In order to answer that question you’ve got to make a decision about the character and ability of God as opposed to the character and worth of humans. 

If God is utilitarian – just the God who gets things done like a business person working the art of the deal – then collateral damage is just an acceptable cost of doing business.  A deeper question would then be:  how can a God who claims to know/love us infinitely, and care for us immeasurably, be so cold?  Is He a business man doing a deal, and some of us are just collateral damage?  Or is He the God who is love?

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  1 John 4:8^(NLT)

Sometimes, when it seems like you are the collateral damage in God’s plan to save someone else, the question of God’s love may come into view.  You begin to pit all the good stuff you’ve ever done against this unjust suffering you must go through.  And you begin to ask/whine the why me question…almost as a demand that God step up with a justification for not keeping up His end of the bargain.

Where was God when your marriage ended, or your child died?  Where was God when bankruptcy was the only option left?  Where was God when your world crashed-down around you?  Where was the loving God then?  That’s the question of the sufferer. 

And then that cross thing shows up again to answer our question:  Where was God? 

·       He was in the same place He was that Friday afternoon when His child died. 

·       He was in the same place when His bride left home. 

·       He was in the same place when His prodigals woke up in the far country’s pigpen, having spent their inheritance. 

His heart was busy being broken as the collateral damage for all our sinful choices. 

For You Today

If God really is love, and His Word really is true, then we are the target of that love…and you can never be collateral when you’re right in the center of the target!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work)

Radiation Retrospect - Part 2

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Monday, September 18, 2017

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22^(NLT)

We are wading through the idea of submitting to God’s power, voluntarily giving the Lord control over who we are, what we do and say, even inviting Him to change what and how we think.

In Part 1 we introduced Wilson, the mask-warden that kept me in place while the power of radiation attacked the cancer in my throat.  Like the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden, that powerful radiation is neither good nor evil until it is pointed at something.  It is in the mind of the one who points the force that either healing or destroying is born.  This brings us to the next issue of collateral damage.

Now, nearly a week after the radiation is done, my throat (inside and outside) is raw and peeling off bits of burned flesh.  My oncologist explained that the target for his machine included not only the cancerous tumor, but most of the voice box area.  While that powerful machine was healing me it was also destroying some of the surrounding tissue to make sure they got everything.  The innocent, healthy tissue was collateral damage.  This immediately reminds me of Jesus’ warning about the collateral thinking of surgery:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands.  Mark 9:43-44^(NLT)

I get it about the priority of going to heaven over hell.  I also draw the parallel between cutting out a tumor that, if unchecked, could send me to one of those places a lot sooner than necessary.  But I also know that surgically removing a hand will cause my entire body to ache, just as my body is now sympathizing with my throat’s trauma.

So here’s the point:  that radiation beam will destroy whatever’s in its path.  And if we’re comparing that raw power of the divided atom to the power of God…and we’re suggesting we open ourselves willingly to God applying that power to destroy or heal, there’s almost a 100% certainty that sometimes there will be the pain of collateral damage; THAT takes a lot of trust!

Consider the statement of Jesus when he was describing for his disciples the effect his presence and power in our lives would have:

‘Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’”  Luke 12:53^(NLT)

For the past two months I’ve willingly driven to the cancer center in High Point, climbed onto a cold slab, much like the morgue’s exam table (it’s even in the hospital basement), allowed a team of techs to pin me to that table, and aim harnessed lightning at my throat.  The effect has caused an incredible uproar of complaining in my whole body because of the decision my brain and throat made.  My joints ache; my voice is kaput; I can hardly swallow, and the fatigue makes me drag myself around like a snail crossing the Grand Canyon.  This is the collateral damage of radiation.

And yet, I chose to do it!

Why I made that choice is profoundly simple.  The tumor that grew in my body over a period of years was a threat to the whole body; it was a threat to life.  My body is a conglomeration which includes soul and spirit.  An attack on the vocal cords is an attack on all of Russell.  So my whole body had to participate in the effects of healing.  The joints said “yes” and the throat said “go for it” and all the muscles that can barely drag this carcass from the bedroom to the couch whined:  “If it’s gotta be, get on with it!”

For You Today

When it comes to sin in our lives, and what to do about life and eternity, the effect of what God will do when you submit your body, soul, and spirit to His power will seem like an awful lot of collateral damage sometimes. 

It’s a small price for an eternity in glory!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work)

Radiation Retrospect - Part 1

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Friday, September 15, 2017

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22^(NLT)

Wilson is what I named him, that device the firing squad used to pin me down to the radiation table every weekday for the past seven weeks.  

It was made to fit this preacher precisely, so the target (my vocal cords) would be in the same place every time they turned on what I affectionately call the BBQ beams.

The radiation treatments finished on Tuesday, so now Wilson sits in the corner of my study, indifferent to the pain he inflicted upon me…or the usefulness he brought in this whole drama of fighting the tumor in my throat.  Rest, Wilson…I mean it…stay put!

When this dance with radiation began I knew I would have to revisit the meaning of Wilson’s relationship with my physical health once the course of treatment was accomplished.  And, because this Rocky Road Devotional is what comes out of my unscripted devotional life, I knew you’d have to read about it.  Sorry!  But maybe not!

I’ve had many thoughts about the meaning of oncological treatment these past weeks, while pinned under Wilson’s embrace.  Lying helplessly on a cold slab, mashed by a mesh mask, perfectly still, unable to speak (or scream), under a two ton machine with atomic power focused on the most vulnerable underside of your neck will make you think of your mortality and the big why question. 

Wilson and the split atom have helped me think of radiation as a metaphor for submitting to the power of God.  So over the next several days I’d like for us to think about some of the basics of our faith in God’s power. 

Radiation is powerful stuff.  Each time the tech team put Wilson over my face, snapped the clasps to the table, and gave me a reassuring pat on the arm…they then ran out of the room before the switch was flipped.  I don’t blame them…when that machine started whirring I wanted to run also! 

I mused quite often on the word radiation; visions of the victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki played in my mind’s theater; there were burning flesh and crippled lives.  I had to keep reminding myself that the singular beam of radiation had a singular aim of killing the cancerous tumor, not all of Russell’s body.  This was a good thing…the tumor was an evil force within, and the machine possessed a powerful force directed with skill towards that evil.  That beam was my big brother come to rescue me from a peril. 

In such moments of awareness I mused that all of God’s creation works like that.  Consider the tree of knowledge of good and evil placed in Eden.  God told the couple to stay clear of that one.  It held such power as to run the universe, but it also held the key to understanding evil.  Like a radiation beam, knowledge can focus on doing good, like destroying cancer or bringing a smile to a child’s face.  In the hands of evil or ignorance it can indiscriminately destroy everything in its path, like an army’s plans for attack which has been carelessly or purposefully leaked to the enemy.

Knowledge by itself is neither good nor evil; it’s like the facts written in a book.  Rather, it is how knowledge is used that makes all the difference. 

Adam and Eve were not ready for the knowledge of good and evil.  They should have had faith in God and kept their cotton-pickin’ hands off that tree!

For You Today

It’s a good thing to have as part of your daily/hourly prayer:  Lord, keep me mindful of the power of knowledge to destroy or build up; give me wisdom to choose wisely.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Russell Brownworth (own work)

Peace

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                                                                                                 Wednesday, October 5, 2016

I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.  Psalm 3:5^(NLT)

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.   Mark 11:22^(NLT)

They called him Brother Thad.  Reverend Thad Entzminger was the pastor who had served the church in Greenville, Florida before I arrived there in 1996.  He had come there at age 65 after his doctor warned him his heart would not survive the busy life of a pastor in South Florida.  He only lasted thirty years, until age 95, being busy, and building up lives in Florida’s panhandle. 

You don’t follow a pastor of that stature without hearing some of the stories.  One in particular was about how Brother Thad did his visiting in that old Buick, a car bigger than most Army tanks.  The huge front bench seat was always covered with morning newspaper, Bible, coffee cup and sermon notes. 

On the 20 mile drive to Madison (which he often made in 14 minutes) to visit those in the hospital, he would read, work on his sermon, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and occasionally look at the road.  Legend had it that the State Troopers never gave him a ticket, they just radioed ahead to make sure the roads were clear of innocent bystanders!

Brother Thad’s favorite hymn (according to the grapevine) was Have Faith in God.  I would imagine you’d have to have great faith to drive like his reputation claimed! 

I’m certain the Psalmist didn’t own a Buick, but he had great faith, knowing that even in the most vulnerable position of sound-asleep the LORD was watching over him. 

In fact, the Psalmist was David, and this was written during the time his rebellious son Absalom was pursuing his father to kill him and steal his throne.  David was on the run, hiding in caves, watching his back and navigating treachery and treason around every corner.  Yet he could sleep like a baby…that’s trusting God!

And that is the point of what we see in the life of a warrior like David, enjoying perfect peace despite the evil plans and plots of enemies; David’s trust in God was the key to the door of peace.

We live in such a time as David lived, uncertain of what the day holds.  But, as with David and Brother Thad, we can have faith in God, and watch our trust fling-open the doorway to reveal peace that passes understanding.

B.B. McKinney wrote Rev. Thad’s favorite verse:

Have faith in God though all else fail about you;
Have faith in God, He provides for His own.
He cannot fail though all kingdoms shall perish;
He rules, He reigns, upon His throne.

For You Today

Got some tough stuff to handle today?

Got questions about tomorrow?

“Have Faith in God” is a good way to start any day.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

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[i] Title Images: By _sikander (Kitten), via Wikimedia Commons

The New Theology; Having Faith....in Faith

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves.   2 Peter 2:1 (NLT)

Close to forty years ago Francis Schaeffer wrote about the heresy 21^st century false teachers of the new theology….faith in faith itself hold up as the way to having your cake and eating it too!  Schaeffer wrote:

Probably the best way to describe this concept of modern theology is to say that it is faith in faith, rather than faith directed to an object which is actually there….The same word, faith, is used, but has an opposite meaning.  Modern man cannot talk about the object of his faith, only about the faith itself.  So he can discuss the existence of his faith and its size as it exists against all reason, but that is all.  Modern man’s faith turns inward.[1]

Have you ever prayed for a pony?  A child that prays for a pony to be standing next to the tree on Christmas morning, silver-buckled saddle and bridle, all ride-ready and waiting is generally going to be disappointed that inward-turned “faith” doesn’t work.

Francis Schaeffer makes the point of the Apostle Peter’s warning about false teachers and preachers who want us to swallow that “genuine” faith is all about believing like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; if you click the heels of your ruby red slippers together three times and believe hard enough, you’ll be back in Kansas when you open your eyes.  Or that pony will be there.  Or the cancer will not have happened.  Or…or…

The main problem is that God isn’t even a consideration in that kind of “faith”.  That’s having faith in faith – not faith in God.  Faith in God, by comparison, is a childlike trust that a prayer, once offered TO God (not flung in space in spite of God)…is then released into the care and better decision-making ability OF God. 

In truly Christian faith, our prayers are a matter of placing our trust in God’s ability as Creator, Sustainer of Life, Lover of All Persons, His ability as GOD, to straighten-out our crooked prayers and give us what is best…not what we crave.  This is the essence of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden:  nevertheless…not my will…your will, Father.  ^{(Matthew 26:39)}

Francis Schaeffer makes the point with clarity that this is the primary difference between what passes for Christianity at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, and what Jude^(1:3) calls the genuine faith, once-delivered to the saints:

In Christianity the value of faith depends upon the object towards which the faith is directed.  So it looks outward to the God who is there, and to the Christ who in history died upon the cross once for all, finished the work of atonement, and on the third day rose again in space and in time.[2]

The “new theology” suggests (over and over again) that we can have what we want, when we want it, so long as we build our faith.  That new Cadillac, new house and any pony you can imagine is our right!  This is so opposite of what Scripture actually says about faith…that it is our gift from God to trust-in and rely-on God ^{(see Mark 11:22)}. 

So, really…the “new theology” isn’t really that new.  It’s been around since Adam and Eve decided they wanted what God had (and we know how badly THAT turned-out). 

For you, today

When you pray, it would be a good thing to begin with, “Our Father”, and let that set the tone for what you’re going to ask. 

Forget the Ruby Red Slippers, Dorothy, have faith in God; leave the keys to the new house and Cadillac in His hands. 

That’s real faith!

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[1] Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, (1968 Intervarsity Press – here quoted in Trilogy, 1990 Crossway), 64,65

[2] Schaeffer, ibid.

What to Believe

Monday, November 10, 2014

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.  Mark 11:22 (NLT)

My poor Yoshino cherry tree in the back yard hardly knows what to think. 

(Ok, I realize it’s a stretch to assume a tree can think at all).

But, if I can speak for the tree, it’s odd that in the first part of November my tree has dropped all of its leaves with the exception of one branch – which is quite full of leaves; it also has a single, lonely blossom! 

The poor tree has winter and summer all mixed up!

What if all nature was that confusing?  What good would it do to purchase the latest Farmer’s Almanac, particularly if you can’t depend on its predictions?  What sense would it make to plant in spring and not in winter?  Everything would be so uncertain.

Well – weather conditions aside – I think my little cherry tree has a valuable life lesson for us today.

Winter (usually) is the picture of death – bare limbs producing nothing; grey skies producing hopelessly blue feelings.  Spring is the promise of hope with life-giving rains, bud-blossoms and new growth.  Summer is the time for full-flower – everything green and pretty; it’s the opposite of winter’s death.

And Now a Question for the Philosophically-Minded among us

Is winter, with its bleak grey skies, bare branches and snow-covered landscape always the picture of death?  Or does it speak of anything else?

I think it depends on how far ahead you look – and if you have faith. 

If, concerning the weather, you’re only looking to what winter will bring...well, you can count on cold temperatures, bare branches and planting cycles that vary.  The sun will come up and spring will eventually come.

But, when it comes to life, death and the meaning of our existence – death precedes life; crosses always come before crowns.  And the lesson of Elizabeth and Russell’s cherry tree is that, here, in the late fall, a blossom on a bare tree is exactly what the cross was in light of Sunday’s empty tomb.  It is the harbinger – a promise of what is to come.  Christ was the first fruits of resurrection harvest. 

I’m an old guy, so I think of the nearing winter as my frame of reference – more time and history behind me than ahead.  But that’s so limited.  When I see that blossom on a bare branch, I have to think in eternal terms….life with Christ which never ends.

And it so makes sense; Christ, the King of Glory, would never have died for something so transitory as an earthly kingdom or a cure for cancer.  He died to give meaning to the winter; He died to bring closure to the madness of death.

And He did it for us!

For You, Today…

When you look around at the leaves dropping and begin to anticipate those first delicate flakes of snow…or you begin to dread that first hard freeze, or ice storm that will take out your power for three days…remember, there’s a power at work that never dies.

Give Him glory; have faith in God!