Invest

At times during my cancer fight, I gave in to the same bad habits that had plagued and tempted me at times throughout my life. After all, what is the point? I am going to die, so give in to the vices and the weaknesses and enjoy them now! Sad to say, I had given into that thinking a few times in the past few years. Yet, that thinking and these vices are only temporarily enjoyable. After the pleasure comes the pain, the damage, the wasted time and money. Ezekiel 14-16 talks about how Israel gave herself to everything but the Lord, using a really strong word: prostitute. Israel prostituted herself, even though she was adopted into a covenant relationship with the LORD and was betrothed to Him. Her desires were insatiable. She gave herself to immorality and was never satisfied. The result was the solemn woe of a wasted history. Have I at times prostituted myself?

Why did I fill my mind during every waking hour with diversions, distractions, and feeding the flesh? My cancer was wasted for a while because I gave in at times to this inner, lower, fallen self. I gave myself to escapist fantasy. Along the way, the voice of the flesh became more powerful and temptations more real. This is the law of sowing and reaping in full effect. Like Hosea says, I had “sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind.” You always sow some, and reap more, much more, later. Why did I fill my mind with such things?

Why did I occupy myself with fleshly things? Not just cancer stuff, but as a pastor and a church planter? During cancer I focused on research, treatments, latest discoveries, the odds of this and that. Before cancer, I read and thought about military things. As a pastor, I dwelt upon church growth, the latest methods and techniques. I am reminded of what John Piper had to say about this: “You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.” I love his quote “Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin….Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are.”

The only solution, I have discovered, to all of this is to INVEST in relationship with God, after poorly investing in many other things. It is time to “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love and break up your unplowed ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes and showers righteousness on you.” I was convicted that I had been like Hosea’s adulterous wife Gomer, and like the northern kingdom of Israel. I had run around trying to satisfy my soul with everything else but Jesus. Filling my soul with church planting plans, leadership principles, military history, status from position, hedonistic pleasures, sports “fandom”, everything but the one thing that will satisfy completely: A deep heart relationship with Jesus, God who is mighty to save. ©2010 Ray Woolridge