A sure and certain outcome

Yesterday my husband got back the results of his first every-four-month blood test. With CLL, the important number is the white cell count. Full-blown leukemia is 25. His count was 9 point something when he was diagnosed with this supposedly slow-progressing cancer. Yesterday the number was just over 12.

I did the math and feel a bit numb. This morning I’m reading John 11 and am amazed how God arranged a sequence of readings in a book copy-written in 1965 that speak to me every day in 2006. The story is about Lazarus. His sisters were worried and sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

It seems a dumb prayer. Didn’t God already know that? Yet it is not a dumb prayer. It expresses faith. Instead of telling God what to do (which is how most of us pray), these women just told Him their concern. They trusted Him to do what is right.

I kept reading. “Now Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’

“Martha said to Him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’”

Of course as I read I’m thinking what my husband is always saying; Everyone is terminal. One day he will die, whether from CLL or something else, and so will I. So I’m substituting ‘husband’ for brother, and as I read the above conversation I heard Jesus ask me the same question, “Do you believe this?”

Faith in Him sometimes amazes me. Often I’m a skeptic with human testimony, tend to think negatively, have to fight to keep from looking for the worst or the darkest side of things, yet when I hear Jesus say, “Do you believe this?” there is without any hesitation a resounding YES in my heart. I know beyond all doubt that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will die, yet shall never die. He is the resurrection and the life and in Him we are alive forever.

Yesterday my husband went to visit a friend who is in the hospital with lung cancer. His prognosis is not good. Worse yet, he does not know Jesus. Bob went to challenge and encourage him to put his faith in Christ while he still has opportunity. This dear man said he wanted to think about it for a day or two, and promised to ask God to show him what he should do!

I marvel at the reality that we are sinners in this battle together, each scrambling through life with a desire that our life never ends, and those who discover the secret of endless life are compelled to reach out to those who have not—strongly desiring that everyone is included.

That’s the big picture, the good part. I’m trying not to dwell too much on the sadness and the losses as this man and my man battle that relentless enemy, death. Jesus keeps whispering to me, “They will rise again” and I remember these verses from 1 Corinthians 15: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”

All this is out of my control, but I know the Lord is fighting this battle for us, and I know that whatever the outcome, Jesus always wins.