Category: Encouragement

I’ll bet you have never seen the words “Christmas” and “prostate cancer” linked before. Let me start by addressing some personal thoughts about Christmas. When Jesus was born, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, the father of Jesus, and explicitly told him to name the baby “Immanuel” which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23 and prophesied hundreds of years earlier in Isaiah 7:14.) Consider the phrase “God with us”. My Bible tells me that God created all things. On a macro scale, this includes universes upon universes, galaxies after galaxies, stars without number. On a micro scale, when one looks at a little ant and consider that this insect who we often step on accidently, has complex biological systems involving brain, nervous, reproductive, sensory and communication systems. The same God created these things.  My little finite mind cannot comprehend the enormous scope of God. Not only that, but we are told that Jesus Himself was an integral part of this creation process. “For in Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible,…..through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16). This same Jesus has now taken on human form as a child. Amazing!!!

So why did He do this? Matthew 1:21 tells us that the same angel told Joseph to name Him Jesus, “for it is He who will save His people (us) from their sins.”  Why did He have to do that? First, because all of us humans have violated at least one of the ten commandments, probably more than once, a human action called “sin” (not just “mistakes”  or “errors”). But couldn’t God forgive eveybody?  He does forgive our sins when we confess them to Him  (1 John 1:9). He could but that would violate one of God’s unchangeable characteristics, namely His justice. Could you conceive of an earthly judge presiding over a courtroom packed with convicted law-breakers just exclaiming “you’re all forgiven, have a nice day?” Would that be justice? Hardly. A price has to be paid by the offenders. As compensation for our sinful nature and actions, God required a sinless sacrifice, namely Jesus, who we know led a sinless life, died by crucifixion as payment for our sins and was resurrected three days later. The resurrection guarantees us who put our faith and trust in Him the promise of eternal life and also denotes Jesus’ deity as compared with His humanity. One imperfect human being dying for another human would not be a worthy sacrifice.

So, the birth of Jesus then has the significance of an eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God coming to earth, making a personal relationship with Him and God the Father a reality by placing our faith in Jesus and why He came. It furthermore guarantees us eternal life with new bodies such as Jesus possessed after He was resurrected from the dead, in a new heaven and a new earth (which God will one day re-make). (See Revelation 21:1). This can best be summed up in the familiar verse John 3:16. “For God so loved the world” (and all of us included), “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him” (viz. puts our faith and trust in Him to forgive our sins and desire to serve Him) “will not perish but have everlasting life.”

So how do I make this Christmas message of “God with us” personal as it relates to our imperfect, cancer-prone bodies? Psalm 139 states that this same God, whom we can know personally through a relationship with His Son, Jesus, knows each one of us individually and intrically. In fact, the Psalmist says, “You (God) did form my inward parts, You did weave me in my mother’s womb. ….I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (verses 13-14). I find it curious that given the amazingly intricate double helical, coil-like, complex shape of our DNA and RNA, the Bible uses the word “weave” or “woven” to describe our  body’s construction. So the God who made us and Jesus who is both God and man, can relate to us on an intimate personal level as we battle our diseases. The name Immanuel, God with us, means we can approach Jesus with our broken bodies. He may chose to heal us or sustain now, either through His direct intervention or those of medical personnel, or fulfill the ultimate healing in a new heaven and new earth with a new body. God’s eyes “has seen my unformed substance” and the days that were ordained for me have been written in God’s book (paraphrase from Psalm 139:16). To know this God personally through the child Jesus whose birth we celebrate at this time, allows us to release our fears, anxieties, apprehensions and nervous sorrows. It is a reason to truly have a “Merry Christmas” and a healthy New Year.

Remember Isaiah the prophet foretold hundreds of years prior to Jesus” birth that, “for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” (Is. 9:6). For information on obtaining a personal relationship with God, see the following link.

 

 

 

Today I awaited the result of my next test for prostate-specific antigen, better known as PSA. In the past, this wait has many times been accompanied by some degree of anxiety. But this time, I had purposed in my heart and mind to release the outcome to the Lord’s care whatever the result may be. Which reminded me of a recent devotional from Dr. David Jeremiah entitled “I Didn’t Know”.  It focused on the familiar story of Jesus’ disciples being in a boat and encountering a storm.

During the three years the disciples spent with Jesus, they had personally witness Him multiply five loaves and two fish to feed thousands, heal the sick and lame, cast out evil spirits and even raise the dead. Many times the disciples seemed to say “I didn’t know He could do that”. Another thing they didn’t know was that Jesus could walk on water – and allow them to do the same. In this instance, during a vicious storm, they spotted Jesus walking on the water toward them. Peter boldly said, “Lord, if it is You, bid me to come to You on the water.” (Matt: 14:28)  I recently read that the word “if” could better be translated by the word “since“. The word “if” can sometimes carry with it some degree of uncertainty. But the term “since Jesus said it,”  implies a higher degree of trust.  Jesus implored Peter to come but he began to sink in the waves when he took his eyes off of Jesus. However, Matthew 14:31,  records “and immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Peter and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'”

Life with Jesus is a never-ending discovery of His love and power if only we will trust Him. If we practice the commands to “trust and obey”, a beautiful cycle begins. According to Dr. Charles Stanley, “trusting the Lord makes obedience easier, and obedience produces ever-increasing trust.” Perhaps we may have never trusted God completely for unusual needs, medical or otherwise. May we explore, trust and discover life with a miracle-working Lord who can deliver what He has promised. Remember the words of this familiar hymn. “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word. Just to rest upon His promise, just to know “thus saith the Lord.” To start a personal relationship with God, see the following link. By the way, my own test result came back as good as I could have hoped for.

 

As I write this post, it constitutes the 1,000,000+ hit on this website which I can only trust has been a help and a blessing to some of you since I was prompted to share my personal story via a blog.

As I write it, it has been 23 years since I was first diagnosed with prostate cancer. While I am classified as having advanced disease, I am asymptomatic, am feeling well and my PSA is undetectable. But there will probably come a day when I will have to read my own website admonitions and apply them to my own life. Can God use my (our) disease to glorify Him? Emphatically, Yes!

What has God told me to do about my condition? The answers are three-fold: a) to yield it to Him; b) to trust Him completely in what He has told me in His Word, and, c) be cognizant of any opportunity to share my story with others that regardless of any outcome, God is to be glorified. In the Old Testament, the prophet Elijah was alone told by God to confront the hundreds of prophets of the false god Baal, whom many of the Israelites had been worshipping as instructed by the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. First, Baal’s prophets placed a sacrificial ox on an altar and in a vain attempt to induce Baal to ignite the sacrifice, they invoked the name of their god to the point of yelling, and cutting themselves for hours to no avail. It now was Elijah’s turn and he went several steps further. He put his ox on a stone altar, made a trench around it, put wood on top of the altar, laid the ox on the wood, poured several pitchers of water on the ox and saturated the wood around it. He did the latter not once but three times. Then he filled the surrounding trench with water. The goal was of course to ignite the burnt offering as a sacrifice to God. Then interestingly enough, Elijah did not pray the obvious prayer namely for fire to come down and ignite the offering which is what one might expect to pray. He merely prayed, “O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (Jacob), let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at Thy word. Answer me, O’ Lord, answer me that this people may know that You O’ Lord are God and that You would turn their heart back again.” (I Kings 18: 36-37). Notice that Elijah did not pray specifically for fire to fall. But it did, spontaneously consuming the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust and licked up all the water in the trench.

How does this relate to offering my prostate cancer? Like Elijah used a sacrificial ox to demonstrate God’s power, I am to lay my body down as an offering according to Romans 12:1 which states “I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable service of worship.” I should then be attentive to whatever circumstance I would find myself where my personal disease sacrifice could be viewed by others including any medical personnel. While it is normal to do so, I should not pray that God would heal my disease according to my plans and scenario. Remember Elijah did not pray for God to send fire and devour the animal sacrifice. But instead, I should pray like Elijah, listen and follow whatever God has told me, and pray that God would somehow demonstrate His presence and power through my disease and thereby be glorifed. Then step back and leave the results to Him.

Jesus Himself made a similar prayer in John 12:23-28. He knew He would soon undergo a painful death by crucifixion and be totally cut off from God, His Father and bear the penalty of the sins of everyone who ever lived and would ever live. Jesus demonstrated His humanity by saying in v. 27, “Now my soul has become troubled and what shall I say, ‘Father save me from this hour?'” In other words, He asked God if He could be spared all this pain and suffering? But then like Elijah, He concludes “But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name.'” Like Elijah and Jesus, may the same be said of us. God can indeed be glorified through our disease state. If you, the reader, cannot identify clearly with this scenario, you too can have an intimate and personal relationship with God much like Elijah. See the following link.

Thank you all for putting this site over the millonth mark.

When all is going well, I don’t usually get anxious except perhaps when I am due for my next PSA test or scan.  Faced with upcoming medical decisions and testing, I confess that in the past I have had a bad habit of anticipating the worst scenario because then the final outcome can only be an improvement. I know that has been a very negative and distrusting way of thinking. Worry often creeps into all of our lives seemingly without warning. However, over the last 23 years, I have learned to release these events and results to God. So the following might be a good word for all of us.

When we worry we are focused on possibilities that have not yet happened or are beyond our control. In the weakness of our fears, we can be comforted knowing nothing comes into our lives apart from God’s knowledge. It’s an opportunity to accept His offer to be our strength and hope regardless of what happens.

I know it can sound like a cliche but remember God is in charge. Nothing happens beyond the knowledge and control of God. When we worry, we are actually acknowledging the truth that in ourselves we are not adequate to meet the demands of life. This is our moment to remind ourselves of some important truths about God. He is everywhere. “Can a man hide himself so I do not see Him, and do I not fill the heavens and the earth declares the Lord?” (Jeremiah 23:23-4). He knows everything. “The Lord looks from heaven and sees all the sons of men” (Psalm 33:13). He is all-powerful. “Jesus said ‘with men this is impossible but with God all things are possible.'”(Matthew 19:26).

Believe He can carry our burdens. But how do we place our cares on the shoulders of God? The answer lies in what we are trusting – in our feelings or in the character of our all-powerful, trustworthy God. “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” (Psalm 55:22).

Admit He is greater than our fears. In Psalm 31, David wrote of being forsaken by his friends and attacked by his enemies. Yet he could say in verse 15 “my times are in Your hand”. David knew God’s goodness and love from experience.

Trust He can sustain us. Advertisements for most things from investments to medicinals all come with disclaimers. Some ads on TV and radio recite disclaimers so fast their words are intelligible. In this broken world we have no guarantees except that God and His Word can be trusted. He wants us to draw on the depths of His love and grace.

Count on Him to never forsake us. If we are God’s children, we are never apart from our Father’s care. “He Himself has said ‘I will never desert you nor will I ever forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5).

If you cannot personally relate to these truths and principles, you can have a personal relationship with the God who stands behind them. See the following link.

The above was adapted from the Our Daily Bread monthly devotional series, August, 2018.

I know this website is focused on providing information to men whose prostate cancers are at any stage. Hopefully most of us may not die of prostate cancer although in my own case, that is definitely a possibility. For myself and I know for many of you as well, our Christian faith and our personal relationship with God plays a most significant role. Some years ago, I came to know an extraordinary young man who was stricken with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy and has been in a wheelchair since the age of 12. He is now 26 and his disease is now seriously threatening his earthly life. Through the years, he has received a college degree, has penned at least two books and is an active blogger on sports especially football as well as spiritual issues. In short, Jonathan is one of the bravest, most honest and admirable men I have ever met. As an inspiration to all of us, I have provided this link to his most recent blog.    http://jonathansperspectiveongod.blogspot.com/2018/08/jonathans-perspective-on-heaven.html?m=1

If any of you wish to know more about entering into a personal, life-changing relationship with God and receive the promise of eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth with a new perfect body and experience the peace and strength that Jonathan possesses in this life, see the following link from this website.

 

A few nights ago, I could not sleep so I sat up and decided to read something light until I got sleepy. Instead a still small voice inside me suggested I use the time alone to talk to God in conversational prayer. As I often do after thanking Him for a number of blessings in my life and asking for sleep, I began to pray about some medical issues I was going through. The still small inner voice seemed to say to me look back on your life. Since 1986, I had a number of serious medical and physical issues which I had not had prior.  That still small voice (which I believe is God’s Holy Spirit) began to remind me to look back and see where I have been protected by God and His wisdom even through these various physical trials. The book of James 1:2-3 admonishes us to “consider it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” So that night, I recounted past trials in my mind.

Even though my career was in the health sciences, I had been a smoker since the age of 17. After considering quiting several times, in 1989, God told me specifically it was time to quit. He also gave me a plan to do so, namely replacing one bad habit with another less harmful one. While I am not advocating this for everyone, I used the nicotine chewing gum as my replacment habit from which I was weaned some weeks afterward. So with God’s suggestion, power and the gum, I quit smoking on my first try and have not smoked since. However, as a result, to this day, I have a mild case of COPD which is under control. I am sure it would have been a more severe or cancerous  situation had I not followed God’s suggestion. My experience exemplifies a spiritual lesson as evidenced from the life of David in the Old Testament. God may deliver us from various conditions but we may have to live with the consequences.

Late one February evening in 1991, I had worked late and was on my way home driving through a rural farmland area where I lived. I inadvertantly dozed off and hit a tree head-on at 50 mph without a seat belt. I suffered severe life-threating head trauma in addition to multiple bone fractures. I spent the next month in the hospital. Once I regained a semblance of understanding, I received a hospital visit from a Maryland policeman who told me that “something told me to go to the quiet road where you were traveling and I witnessed the entire accident.” He was on site within 1-2 minutes of my accident. Had this not been the case, I would have bled to death from head wounds.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer which has been documented on this website under My Story (link). It is now 2018 and my cancer is still present somewhere in my body though I am physically asymptomatic. God has given me excellent physicans to this day for which I am extremely grateful. This condition led to the inception of this website which I have had the blessing of writing and trusting it may have helped a few other men along the way with similar conditions.

In the winter of 2000, I was newly married. One Saturday afternoon, I developed chest pains which could not be distinguished initially from angina or acid reflux. After an overnight hospital stay, doctors concluded it was angina and a helicopter was summonned to fly me to a Washington D.C. heart center. However, it was a bitterly cold and snowy day and the chopper blades were frozen. My wife Marie to whom I was newly married. Being a person devoted to prayer, she immediately asked God for His help. Within minutes of her prayer, she was informed that the chopper blades were defrosted and I was on my way to Washington. A stent was placed in my right coronary artery and two days later I was back at work. I am asymptomatic to this day.

Most recently in March, 2018, I was working in my Florida yard when I noticed my speech was slurred. I recognized this immediately as a stroke symptom and was rushed to a local hospital emergency room which was surprisingly totally devoid of patients at the time. Fortunately, the stroke was minor and I suffer only mild speech impairment. Subsequently, I was prescibed a full strength aspirin as a prevention of future strokes. However, this full strength aspirin led to a bleeding condition which I have had. Instead, an 80 mg “baby” aspirin was substituted by my neurologist which seems to be working to this day as a compromise stroke inhibitor without the subsequent bleeding.

Looking back, I have seen God’s hand in delivering me through these events. The next morning, I happened to read a devotional in the May 17th edition of Our Daily Bread in which the anonymous writer of Psalm 136 encourages the reader to remember the events of God’s deliverances and praise His goodness. The psalmist describes God’s attributes as the One who does wonders, who created the heavens, earth, sun, moon and stars. The writer cites numerous examples of God’s mighty deeds for the Jewish people through the years. These include protecting them from the pursuing Egyptians by parting the Red Sea, protecting them from other enemies, and providing physical nourishment in the wilderness.  At the end of each citation through the entire Psalm, the writer states the refrain “His love endures forever.”  While He did not part a Red Sea for me, He protected me through all the experiences above. It prompted me to see God’s protection for me personally and verify that indeed “His love endures forever”. For other personal life lessons, see the following website section; Lessons Learned. 

One day, my life will most likely end. But I pray that God’s mercy will be manifested therein as well knowing I will be transported to heaven and eventually a new earth with a new body forever.  Then I will experience the ultimate example of “His love endures forever.” According to 1 Peter 1 3-6, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an imperishable inheritance reserved in heaven, …….even if for a little while we are distressed by various trials.”  Putting faith daily in God’s promises and looking back on His past protection and mercy, takes a lot of anxiety out of the aging process. Truly “His love endures forever.”

For more information about experiencing God’s love personally, see the following link.

We who struggle with various medical conditions are often either seeking guidance from God about specific decisions or awaiting results and answers to our prayers. In Psalm 130, the author writes about being in deep distress facing a situation that feels like the blackest of nights. He writes in verse one “out of the depths I cry to You Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.” But in the midst of his troubles, he chooses to trust God and stay alert like a guard on duty charged with announcing daybreak. “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits and in His word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning (v.5-6).” The anticipation of God’s faithfulness breaking through the darkness gives the Psalmist hope to endure even in the midst of suffering. Based on the promises of God found throughout Scripture, this hope allows him to keep waiting even though he has not yet seen the first rays of light.

In Psalm 130:5-6, the word “wait” appears five times. In God’s development of our personal faith, He often delays an answer to prayer to deepen our trust in Him. At times this can be perpexing. Asking for His intervention often carries a sense of urgency. We pray, “Lord, I need Your help now!” But “waiting on the Lord” takes discipline and develops a perseverance in our faith that only steadfastness can yield. Remember Abram waited years for Isaac, the child God had promised to him. This came about only through his wife Sarah’s unlikely conception when she was advanced in years and well beyond the age of childbearing. Abram waited on God in prayer and eventually God granted him generations of offspring too numerous to count. (Genesis 12, 16 and 17).

What prayers are you waiting for God to answer?  In what ways might your heavenly Father be developing your faith as you wait? Be encouraged if you are in the midst of a dark night. The dawn is coming. In the meantime, don’t give up hope but keep watching for the deliverance of the Lord in one way or another. He will be faithful. A good prayer would be “please bring light to my darkness. Open my eyes to see You at work and to trust You. Father, I am grateful that You are faithful”. If you are unsure of your own personal relationship with God as your heavenly Father, see the following link.

The above was an excerpt from the May 1st, 2018 devotional written by Lisa Samra appearing in Our Daily Bread, published by RBC Ministries.

As part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke the following words from Matthew 6:25-30 about worry and anxiety, emotions and feelings most of us with prostate cancer can relate to. “Do not be anxious for your own life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than them? And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life span?” (A cubit is 18 inches and ‘life span’ as used here can mean ‘height’). “Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil. Yet Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass of the field,….will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith.”

Stressful situations come in a variety of forms and intensities, and our earthly existence will never be completely free of them. However the important question is what are we going to do with our anxiety? If we let it dominate our thinking, fretfulness can become a way of life. But if we believe and trust in what the Bible says about the Lord and His care for us, then we will experience an awesome liberation from worry.

Do you sometimes doubt whether God really cares about your health issues like cancer that cause you (and me) to worry? After all, He’s got the entire universe to run and our issues seem so small in comparison, and we are just one person in this cosmos. But consider how inconsequential birds and flowers are, yet Jesus says that the Father cares for them. Don’t you think we are worth much more to Him than they are? (Actually the woodpecker in the picture lives in my yard).

At times we let ourselves get all worked up and stressed out because we are trying to change something that is beyond our control. While there may be ways of improving our disease states by proper diet, exercise, rest and proper treatments, there are many situations that we are powerless to alter such as the length of our life. But the sovereign Ruler of the universe loves us and holds everything in His hands – including our stressful and seemingly out-of-control situations. Therefore, we have no reason to fret or fear.

Perhaps the biggest reason we worry is because we don’t trust the Lord or do not even know Him or have a relationship with Him. Anxiety can be a symptom of unbelief. The Bible is filled with God’s promises to provide, but so often we doubt that He will. If you have a relationship with God, and if you can trust Him for your eternal security, can’t you also trust Him for your earthly needs? Submit your needs to Him and trust Him. If you are not sure of your relationship with God, see the following link.

A portion of the above was taken from In Touch devotional by Dr. Charles Stanley.

For several weeks, I had been undergoing a cutting-edge, experimental cancer treatment. I firmly believed God had led me to this stage by a totally unexpected but logical pathway. My oncologist had also enthusiastically concurred with my choice. One of the few ways to determine therapeutic progress in this trial is by measuring one’s prostate specific antigen (PSA) level. Mine had not decreased at all but had steadily increased over the first weeks. I was becoming skeptical as to whether or not this experimental regimen was to offer any clinical benefit and even more seriously, I was beginning to doubt whether God had actually led me to this point.

Then one morning I happened to read a portion from the Old Testament book of Lamentations 3: verses 19-26 written by the prophet Jeremiah. Specifically the prophet was imploring God to “remember my affliction….and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.” Clearly Jeremiah was depressed and worried. However, he remembers that “the Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness…. Therefore I have hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good that he wait silently for the salvation of the Lord.”

The Bible encourages us to move toward faith and away from doubt. Actually, faith and doubt cannot co-exist in reality. But many of the Biblical giants we read about such as Abraham, his wife Sarah, Jacob, Moses, David, and numerous prophets of the Old Testament as well as Jesus’ own disciples doubted. But as a group, they all came directly to God with their doubts. Some of them argued and even hollered at God, but they didn’t walk away.

Waiting on the Lord is a kind of wrestling, taking our doubts and questions to Him because we know He is the only one who can help. No matter how hard the questions or the situation, “his mercies are new every morning (vv. 22-23) and His faithfulness is abundant. God’s love and compassion are always with us for He never abandons us. But in another sense, we often desire to see His love in action or to experience it first-hand in our personal circumstances.

This is the only reason we’re not crushed under life’s burdens and difficulties. The challenges to our faith are very real as evidenced by the scriptural use of the words “affliction, bitterness, wandering, and downcast” (depressed). Yet they are outweighed by God’s love and faithfulness as they are absolutely perfect. The most hopeful thing we can say is “the Lord is my portion” (translated ‘share’ or ‘inheritance’); “therefore I will wait for Him” (v. 24). This urges us to wait quietly and patiently without grumbling or complaining. The Lord sustains our very lives.

So personally I wait. I invoke the words of David in Psalm 37:7. I need to “rest” (or be still) “in the Lord and wait patiently” (longingly) “for Him”. To be continued; my treatments continue.

If you are uncertain of your own personal relationship with God, see the following website link.

A portion of the above was an excerpt from “Today in the Word”, a devotional published by the Moody Press, Chicago, IL.