INCREASE MY FAITH

​So, yesterday I had another chemo treatment. The doctor came in to go over things with me as he always does. When I asked him to assess my current circumstances pursuant to my cancer battle he said, “Better than the best case scenario.” That was really encouraging. But he had already said that, after this full round of chemo (12 infusions over about 25 weeks) we would stop them and I would probably begin taking one medicine in the form of a pill. Asked why, he said that the affects of the chemo are too hard on the body to continue indefinitely. When asked if there would be a time to do another round, he said that if I was still doing well in a year he might consider it. That tells me that he doesn’t expect me to be doing well in a year. That was discouraging. Sort of like, “even though you are doing so well now, I don’t expect it to last.” (Thanks doc) He is a man who tells it like it is.
 
So, throughout the day I struggled with the two bits of news. 1. I am doing better than expected. 2. I shouldn’t expect it to last. I spent a lot of time chatting with my Heavenly Daddy about all this. Then, this morning, the Lord gave me these words (yes, from Spurgeon again)
 
            1 Peter 1:7 “The trial of your faith.”
 
Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbor; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves, then, though the vessel may rock, and her deck my be washed with waves, and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway towards her desired haven. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the foot of the frozen glacier; no stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky; no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand; and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity; the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and it trial is precious too.
 
Thank God for what grace you have; praise Him for that degree of holy confidence whereunto you have attained: walk according to that rule, and you shall yet have more and more of the blessing of God, till your faith shall remove mountains and conquer impossibilities.
 
I think to myself – “If I only knew that God was going to grant me life, I would be at greater peace.” But then I am reminded that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “Lord, increase my faith. Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

God bless!