Thank God it's Friday ...

Well, it's the end of a hard working week!

It's been a tough one, with long hours, and lot's of frustration. People seem to have an uncanny propensity to make life hard for you when you least need it. Like the people who undid a whole days work by deleting some crucial files off of a compact flash memory card. The problem was that we had to work all day through till 4.30am the next morning to rectify the problem. It didn't have to be that way, but someone's thoughtlessness caused it. It's been a week of fighting to make schedules, and to keep promises and commitments to clients and other people.

I managed to shoehorn in a visit to my skin cancer clinic today to find out what the verdict is. They want to operate next Tuesday. I'm still working through how I feel about it. I used the Aldara cream treatment and it seemed to work well, with lots of improvement on the outside of the skin, but my Dr says that the BCC is still under the skin, and must be cut out to remove it completely. I guess I'm wondering why God hasn't answered my prayers for healing YET!. I know that it's only Friday evening, and so God still has 3.5 days left to do a miracle, but there is always that thought that maybe He won't. Or maybe it's an exercise of faith. What would be awesome would be if on Tuesday I rockup for surgery and the Dr looks and sees that the BCC is completely gone. Then, what an awesome opportunity to share Christ with him, and to avoid the pain of going under the scalpel.

My experience has been that in every hard test of faith that we enter into, there is always a desire on our part to see a quick and painless solution. This is not always what God has in mind. He wants what is best for us, but He wants us to grow in faith and intimacy with Him first and foremost. Does this mean I give up on praying for and believing for a miracle of healing. Definately NOT! It makes me more determined to seek the miracle that I believe Jesus died on the cross to secure for me.

The hecticness of this past week ( and quite a few before it) has helped me to realize that our enemy wants to squeeze the life out of us. And he does this by making us so busy that we become inwardly focussed - in survival mode sometimes. He attacks us on every front - financially, time with our family, health, and material possessions that break or are taken away from us.

Sometimes we become convinced that we have to fight - and this is true - we do have to fight, because the scriptures state that we are in a war against the enemy and his minions. But the truth is that we don't have to fight the enemy - Jesus has already done this and won. The person who we have to contend with is ourselves. The biggest battle or fight is waged within - to maintain relationship with God such that the will and purposes of God take place in our lives every moment of every day. His will is that I should be healed. How do I know for sure? Because the scriptures say that Jesus died not just to give me eternal life, but to heal me of my sickness and diseases. By His stripes I AM healed. Sickness will come and try to attack us, but we don't have to let it conquer us or rule us. We have the victory because Jesus won it on the Cross of Calvary.

Well, next Tuesday is C-Day. I guess my theology will be tested, but the funny thing is, it doesn't worry me. Whatever happens, God is still AWESOME. He still healed my knee in Laos on the missions trip. He still saved our home and our business. He still has done countless awesome miracles in every area of my life.

Whether I stand in the pulpit to preach on Sunday 15th May nursing a sore shoulder - proclaiming that God's grace is sufficient to see me through every challenge that I face - or whether I stand in that puplit to preach and declare the miracle working power of God is still at work in my life - nothing changes the fact that I owe my life to God and it is His to deal with as He pleases, because He loves me, and He would never harm me. He has promised to remember the thoughts that He has towards me. And they are thoughts to give me a hope and a future - to prosper me and not to harm me.

God does not change His thoughts towards us. Can we afford to change our thoughts towards Him? My post next Tuesday night on this blog will reflect what my attitude towards God is at that time, and I declare now that I will still be praising and worshipping Him no matter what happens. It may just affect the way YOU see God though. I pray that the end result will not cause you to lose faith in God's ability and desire to still perform miracles of healing today. I pray that whatever happens you will be challenged to seek His face, and to cry out "Glory to the King"!

Safe in the arms of Jesus.

Steve