Waiting is not always a bad thing; it can bring its own joy—the thrill of anticipation. Do you remember waiting for Christmas as a child? Waiting for your wedding day? Waiting for something good makes the heart sing. It fills us with hope. It changes us internally so that the ups and downs of this fickle, undependable life can exert no real power over us. The world may take away our homes and every cent we have. We may cry out, but our hope is intact because our losses are only a reminder of the grand gift that, once received, can never be lost. And it’s worth waiting for.
[1] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2004), 74.
[2] John Wesley, Selections from the Writings of the Rev. John Wesley (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1929), 232.
[3] John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, volume 1 (London, 1829), 566.
[4] Timothy George, “Unseen Footprints,” Preaching Today audio, no. 290.
[5] Adapted from Robert J. Morgan, On This Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), March 12.
[6] Leonard Griffith, God in Man’s Experience: The Activity of God in the Psalms (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1968), 59–60.
[7] Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Treasury of David: Psalm 37,” Christianity.com, https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=spur&b=19&c=37.
[8] From Leonard I. Sweet, Strong in the Broken Places (Akron, OH: University of Akron, 1995), 109.
[9] Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 275.
CHAPTER 4
HOPE AMID SERIOUS ILLNESS
* * *
I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand,
saying to you, “Fear not, I will help you.”
ISAIAH 41:13
As I write this chapter, I have just completed my semiannual CT scan. For nearly twenty years, I’ve been making this round-trip journey to the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California. It all began in 1994 when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I arranged to receive chemotherapy at Scripps, nearer to my home. With each passing year, the staff there has risen higher on my list of heroes.
It was on my first day at Scripps that I met Dr. Alan Saven, the oncologist. After two decades, he still examines me twice yearly. He and Dr. Charles Mason, who presided over my stem cell transplant, saved my life.
Make no mistake, to God be the glory—He and only He holds my life in His hands. But I also know that He raises up caring and gifted people to apply their skills as God’s agents in delivering His gift of health. I’m so grateful for these talented specialists, and I let them know it in every way I can.
I won’t recount all the details of my bout with cancer. You can find them in my book When Your World Falls Apart. But here in this book about hope in the face of fear, I can’t help but revisit those memories. People know I’m a pastor, and they know my thoughts on spiritual issues. Therefore they want to know whether I was afraid as I struggled with cancer. I’m more than happy to answer that question, but I must warn you that it may be difficult for you to truly understand what I’m saying. Cancer is one of those subjects that can’t be comprehended secondhand. It’s larger than life; it carries such powerful implications that it changes a person forever. Whenever I open the door at Scripps, the feelings come flooding back, even though I’ve had consistently good reports for two decades. The good news never quite washes out the memory and emotions of those uncertain times. So was I afraid? Is it fear that comes creeping back even now? Here’s what I wrote in that previous book:
Absolutely! I was desperately afraid. There’s no disputing that. Was I afraid to die? No. I’m not afraid to leave this life, although I’m not eager to do so either. A good bit of my fear focused on losing precious years with the people I love. Some of it was simply about pain. Some of it was about the unknown. How would you respond to the news that you were suffering from a possibly fatal disease? Imagine the thoughts and feelings that might flood your heart at such a time, and you’ll know the same things I experienced.[1]
Missionary Isobel Kuhn wrote a book entitled In the Arena, in which she explains a wonderful truth: a life filled with problems and setbacks can become a life filled with unique tools for sharing the Gospel. Every issue she faced brought one more opportunity to glorify God through the wisdom she learned.
In her final chapter, Isobel told of how she coped with breast cancer. Health became her great concern, and knowing how cancer could spread, her natural impulse was to panic—to anticipate the worst. If she coughed, it must be lung cancer. A toothache meant mouth cancer. Every minor ache or twinge was a harbinger of dire health consequences. She learned that disease is the host of fear.[2]
Eventually, however, Isobel learned that Christ overcomes every fear. That message can change the world, and it can change your life.
The Prevalence of Disease
It’s hard for us to imagine anyone living in perfect health, but Adam and Eve did. Their bodies were absolutely flawless. The very concept of disease would have been foreign to them. Their sin, of course, shattered that reality. It cost them God’s gift of perfection and corrupted the whole created order. As Paul tells us, God’s creation, now afflicted with disease and corruption, groans in agony (Romans 8:20-22). Because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, disease is now a prevalent factor of our existence. Each of us will spend a certain portion of our lives sick, wounded, or dying.
We view sickness with revulsion and dread, and somewhere in our spirits we sense that things weren’t meant to be this way. God has placed eternity in our hearts, and thus threats to life come as odious intrusions. We long for the day when the curse of sin will be lifted—“eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Until then, we must cope with the inevitability of bodily corruption.
As we lose the naive sense of invulnerability of youth, we fret over aches and pains and what they may foretell. We feel anxious over the doctor’s call with a test result or the look on his face as he walks into the room. We panic over a strange feeling in the chest or a lump where none should be. These are basic, primal fears. Death does its work in increments: the erosion of teeth, the growing inflexibility of limbs, the dulling of the senses. There are only so many ways to do maintenance work on the human body. We jog, we work out, we eat right, and then, as comedian Redd Foxx put it, someday we lie down in a hospital, “dying of nothing.”
The diversity of the human body allows many points of entry for the grim reaper. According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control, the leading causes of death by disease in the United States are (in descending order) heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and pneumonia.[3]
Not only do diseases take a physical and an emotional toll, they take a financial one as well. The United States is the most expensive nation when it comes to treating illness.[4] In just one year, the total cost for health care was more than $3.6 trillion.[5] Because of these astronomical costs, a major medical incident can wipe out a family living on the financial edge. When our bodily health declines, so does the health of our wallets.
Disease (dis-ease) literally means “not easy” or “not at ease.” Our experiences confirm the accuracy of that definition. Disease disrupts the patterns of life, robbing us of control and forming barriers with other people. It sends us to expensive medical facilities where we place our fate in the hands of strangers. It builds our dependence on mystifying medications. Commercials for these medicines show happy, healthy people who don’t seem to have a care in the world. But at the end of the ad, the announcer lists ominous side effects in a hushed voice and with the speed of an auctioneer on steroids.
Hospitals are not fun places. They’re a conglomeration of needles, tubes, monitors, pills, thermometers, call buttons, and bedpans—not to mention the total absence of modesty and privacy.
We all fear disease, yet one or more will eventually catch up with each of us. Maybe you’re battli
ng an illness right now. Maybe it’s just around the next corner, or perhaps someone dear to you is fighting desperately for his or her health. Disease is prevalent and inevitable, but how we understand it makes a great difference. It’s no surprise that the Bible has a great deal to say about disease and how people coped with it.
Prominent Biblical Examples of Disease
I’ve never preached a sermon series on “Diseased Characters from the Bible,” nor has any pastor I know. But there would be a wealth of material to mine. For example:
Paul and his “thorn in the flesh,” which may have been a physical illness (2 Corinthians 12:7)
Job sitting in his ash heap, covered with boils (Job 2:7-8)
Lazarus, a young man with a terminal illness (John 11:1-4)
The woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:25-29)
Naaman and his leprosy (2 Kings 5:1)
King David and the “evil disease” that clung to him (Psalm 41:8)
King Asa and his foot disease (1 Kings 15:23)
King Jehoram and his diseased intestines (2 Chronicles 21:15)
Christ’s Galilean friends with “all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease” (Matthew 4:23)
Epaphroditus, who was “sick almost unto death” (Philippians 2:26-27)
Dorcas, who fell sick, died, and was raised from death by Peter (Acts 9:36-41)
As we read of people in Scripture who suffered with various diseases, we recognize the same emotions we feel today. One compelling example is Hezekiah, a king of Judah. Let’s look first at his life, and then we’ll explore his approach to illness. His battle with disease is recounted three times: in 2 Kings 20, 2 Chronicles 32, and Isaiah 38.
Hezekiah was one of Judah’s greatest kings. “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him” (2 Kings 18:5).
Hezekiah ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five and inspired a period of religious revival in which he was encouraged by Isaiah, perhaps the noblest and the most eloquent of the Hebrew prophets. Hezekiah opened the long-closed doors of the Temple in Jerusalem and began its renovation, issuing this charge to the priests and Levites: “Hear me, Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place” (2 Chronicles 29:5).
The final verses of this great chapter describe the lavish Temple consecration services and the joy of the king and his people, who felt that God was doing a great thing among them. (Reading this account makes us long for a similar revival today.) In chapter 30, we learn that God’s hand was on this nation, bringing its people together in unity and obedience under God. We find a glowing summary of Hezekiah’s reign in 2 Chronicles 31:20-21:
Hezekiah did . . . what was good and right and true before the LORD his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart. So he prospered.
It was a golden age of faith and prosperity in Judah, and all things went well for ten to fifteen years. Then, when Hezekiah turned thirty-nine, he became ill. The prophet Isaiah came to him and said, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live’” (Isaiah 38:1).
Painful Emotions of Disease
How would you react if you learned that your death was imminent? If a godly man like Hezekiah “wept bitterly” (Isaiah 38:3), then we can understand it’s no sin to express grief when we’re hit with terrible medical news. Hezekiah was not just a godly king; he was a godly human king. And humans naturally grieve in the face of bad news. As we follow the progress of Hezekiah’s illness, we’ll gather helpful insights into the art of managing poor health.
The Prayer
Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD, and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
ISAIAH 38:2-3
Hezekiah, horrified and in earnest grief, soaked his sickbed with sweat and tears. Later he wrote a memoir of his illness, which we find in Isaiah 38:10-15. The first few verses of that passage offer a vivid and wrenching picture of Hezekiah’s troubled heart. Here, in Eugene Peterson’s memorable paraphrase, are the reflections of this king upon the news of his impending death:
In the very prime of life
I have to leave.
Whatever time I have left
is spent in death’s waiting room.
No more glimpses of GOD
in the land of the living,
No more meetings with my neighbors,
no more rubbing shoulders with friends.
This body I inhabit is taken down
and packed away like a camper’s tent.
Like a weaver, I’ve rolled up the carpet of my life
as God cuts me free of the loom
And at day’s end sweeps up the scraps and pieces.
I cry for help until morning.
Like a lion, God pummels and pounds me,
relentlessly finishing me off.
I squawk like a doomed hen,
moan like a dove.
My eyes ache from looking up for help:
“Master, I’m in trouble! Get me out of this!”
But what’s the use? God Himself gave me the word.
He’s done it to me.
I can’t sleep—
I’m that upset, that troubled.
ISAIAH 38:10-15, THE MESSAGE
In my own memoir of illness, I shared that it took me three days simply to be capable of telling my wife the doctor’s news. On the day after my diagnosis, she was scheduled to leave town to visit her mother, and I decided not to burden her. I knew she’d immediately cancel her trip, and for what? There was no point in disturbing her until further tests were done.
So I kept my silence. I drove her to the airport the next day, watched her plane vanish into the clouds, and suddenly felt the pangs of loneliness; it was time to confront the dark jungle of my thoughts. I longed for her comfort, but it would only be a three-day wait. We met in another city where I was scheduled to speak, and that’s where I quietly told her what the doctors had said.
We wept, but not bitterly. Even at such a low moment, we knew we had our faith and we had each other. We held each other for hours as the gray dusk of a new morning gathered outside.
During my previous three days of solitary meditation, I walked in Hezekiah’s sandals. Master, I’m in trouble—get me out of this! I prayed, just as Jesus prayed for the cup to be taken from Him. But just as He set His own desires within the will of the Father (Luke 22:42), I knew what all serious Christians know: my prayers would cycle through a process that would end at the same destination: Your will, not mine, O Lord.
I’m not comparing my plight to that of the Son of God, of course. I just followed His example to the resolution I knew was inevitable. His will, I knew, is infinitely wiser than my feeble comprehension. The cycle of every anguished prayer must move from our frantic human desires to loving, trusting obedience.
Tears and prayer are understandable responses to disease, whether we’re the one afflicted or we’re grieving for a loved one. Though we can’t predict how the Lord will answer, we know the tears and prayers of His suffering people always move Him (Psalm 56:8).
The Promise
The word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.”’”
ISAIAH 38:4-5
Here Hezekiah received the joyful news he was longing to hear: God would heal him. Why did God do this? Why did he heal the king and give him fifteen more years of life? In part, it was because He saw Hezekiah’s tears and was moved by compassion.
Recall the basis of Hezekiah’s prayer for healing: “Remember now, O LOR
D, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight” (Isaiah 38:3). Hezekiah laid out his case before God: “I’ve been faithful to You. I’ve cleansed the land of idols and restored the Temple worship. So in return, please be gracious and heal me.”
We must remember, however, that no matter how great a king Hezekiah was, God had no obligation to heal him. We cannot earn His favor with our works. God’s healing is about His faithfulness, not ours. Healing comes the same way salvation does—by grace: “By [the Messiah’s] stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Healing is part of the very nature of God, and in His grace, He offers it to those who fear Him: “To you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2).
We find another reason for Hezekiah’s healing in Isaiah 38:5: God said to the king: “Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father.” God had made a covenant with David that the throne of Judah would always go to one of David’s descendants. The reference to David in this passage is God’s reminder that He is faithful to His promises. That faithfulness was demonstrated when, three years after Hezekiah’s healing, his son Manasseh, who would be the next king, was born (2 Chronicles 33:1).
After Hezekiah was healed, God reminded him again of His faithfulness to His promise to David. He said He would defend Jerusalem against the invading Assyrians “for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake” (2 Kings 19:34).
God’s dealings with Hezekiah and his nation were part of a much bigger story than Hezekiah could see. It was also about the glory of God—as it always is—and about a promise made long ago to David. God is always good, gracious, and compassionate, and therefore He is a worthy place to put our hope.
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