Life Lessons Learned: Don't Waste Your Cancer - From the Writings of John Piper

Tom Shrader examines James 1:2-5 alongside John Piper's personal letter written before cancer surgery, exploring how Christians should respond to trials. He teaches that suffering serves as spiritual aerobics, testing the authenticity of our faith while producing endurance. Drawing from Piper's ten ways to waste your cancer, Shrader shows how trials are designed by God to deepen our reliance on Him rather than earthly comforts.

“Everything that comes into your life is either caused by or allowed by God, everything.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Miscellaneous

Recorded: February 23, 2006

Duration: 44 min

Themes: suffering, trials, faith, endurance, trust, perseverance, hope, testing, facing illness, cancer diagnosis, health crisis, medical challenges, chronic illness, family caregiver, hospital chaplain, experiencing loss

Scripture: James 1:2-5, Romans 8:1, Galatians 3:13, Psalm 84:11, Psalm 20:7, 2 Corinthians 1:9, 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Ecclesiastes 7:2, Psalm 90:12, Hosea 6:3, Proverbs 1:7, Matthew 1:25, Matthew 13:55

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, providence, divine sovereignty, spiritual maturity, biblical suffering, christian discipleship, faith testing

Full Transcript

So what I want to do today is something a little bit different. Let's put a break in our current series. I want to drop in a special lesson, something I don't do very often, but I do it once in a while when something happens or there's something that occurs nationally or relationally. We'll put a little pause and talk about it.

The lesson this morning flows from a situation in the life of John Piper. Many of you know John Piper and that name. Many of you who know John Piper might know that he was diagnosed three or four weeks ago with cancer, and last Wednesday or Thursday had surgery. The evening before the surgery, Piper posted a note to his church, and to all of us really, on his website. What it is is basically ten ways that you could waste your cancer.

Now, that may sound like a really weird phrase to you, but what Piper is doing is acknowledging that what God brings in our life, He brings in our life for a reason. So I want to do a little background, and then we'll take probably the last 20 minutes or so. I'll do something very unusual and literally read the letter to you and comment on it along the way.

Foundational Christian Principles

For me personally, this dovetails right into things I've been teaching at church. For me, this is one of those extraordinary lessons. When I come to the Christian life, there are some things I've got to know. Number one, I need to know what a Christian is to make sure when we talk about Christian that I am one. I think we have over the years really carved out for you what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ.

A Christian is someone who is first and foremost based on what they believe, and that's not typically how we think. You would run down to the marketplace and somebody would say, "You're not acting like a Christian," and we tend to think activity with Christian. We think this is what a Christian does, and most of those things that you would list are things that a Buddhist would do or a Hindu would do or just a good guy or a good gal might do.

A Christian, first and foremost, is someone who believes that they are a sinner, that their sin has separated them from God, that there's nothing they can do to pay the price for their sin. Though their life is obsessed with it, there's nothing they can do. The wage of sin is death. Something has to die, and that's why Christ came and that's why Christ died. If I believe Jesus is who He said He was and will do what He said He would do, I put my faith and trust in that. I'm trusting Him, not me, for my salvation, and I am now a follower of Christ.

Now, all of my life begins to change, and there's a behavior that comes with that. In the course of living that, there's some things along the way. One of them we talked about four weeks ago: He owns everything, He's transferred possession to me, but not ownership to me. What we're going to look at today is really important to me as we understand the basic Christian life.

The Book of James: Author and Context

Look at James. We're going to look at James chapter 1, verses 1, 2, 3, and 5. Here's the author, James. He identifies himself as a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad.

Now, who is this James? Rather than give you a long introduction, let me give you the condensed version. We believe that this James is one who's identified in Scripture as one of the pillars of the early church. So in the early church, there were these three guys that were identified as the key three guys: John and Peter and James. This would be that James. He's also identified in Scripture as the half-brother of Jesus, meaning his mother is Mary. His father would be Joseph, Jesus born of a virgin.

Now, for some of you, that's pretty tough sledding because you come from a traditional background, especially from a Catholic church that teaches that Mary was forever a virgin. The problem with that is that that's contrary to the Scripture. When I have something that my church teaches, I don't care what the church is, could be our church, East Valley Bible Church, and I have something that the church teaches versus something that the Scripture teaches, the Scripture always supersedes any sort of tradition or any sort of church teaching.

The Scripture is pretty clear. Matthew chapter 1, verse 25 says that Joseph kept Mary a virgin until she gave birth to Jesus. As we work our way through Scripture, we see times when Jesus is met by His mother, His brothers, His sisters. We find in Matthew chapter 13, verse 55, that His brothers are named James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, and He has at least sisters, plural, too.

So I don't mean to be crass here, and I don't want to be irreverent, but at least six times Mary and Joseph were intimate. At least six times. So I want you to understand that they were a normal family. It would be very abnormal in my mind to hold them up as a model family if the mother and the father are not sexually active, because it seems very clear to me that one of the things that the Scripture prescribes for a marriage is

Sexual activity between the husband and the wife, and a lot of it. That's what it seems to me. Now, I may be reading a little bit into that, but it sounds right. That's who this James is.

James: A Humble Introduction

Now look how he identifies himself—a bondservant. I want you to think this through. His brother's Jesus, his mother's Mary, he's a pillar of the early church. If I'm right in my introduction, I'm dropping all those names along the way. Hi, I'm James. You may not know me, but you might know my brother Jesus. If you don't know Him, you might know my mom, Mary, and did you ever hear about that first Jerusalem council because I presided over the whole thing?

He doesn't do that. You get a glimpse into this man's heart just by the way he introduces himself. He introduces himself with the same job description that you and I have: slave. Larry used to always say our title is very impressive—ambassador for Jesus Christ. Our job description, not so impressive—slave.

I'm a slave. He's the master, I'm the slave. Isn't that what Jesus said? You can't serve two masters. You're always a slave. You're never going to be anything but a slave. You're either going to serve God or you're going to serve the world and the world system. But you're never anything other than a slave. And James says, I'm a slave. He doesn't capitalize on his position. He doesn't say, I'm Roger Clinton, you might know my brother. He doesn't play off this kinship. I'm James.

The Scattered Believers

Also, he writes to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad. These are Jews who believe in Christ, who are dispersed. Some of your translations will say scattered, meaning they're outside Palestine. Probably for two reasons. One would be because as followers of Christ, there was intense persecution in their life. Or simply, as Jews, no one would have—once they converted to Christianity, their family disowned them. They'd have no business relationships with anyone. Everyone would cut them off. So simply to survive, they had to leave.

Or there might have been a few who were obediently listening to what Jesus said when He said go and make disciples. In any case, we know these people have left everything to go do whatever it is they're doing. So we can assume—again, it doesn't say this, so we need to be careful here—but I think the tone of the letter and other writings would indicate that most of these people are in real tough situations. In essence, think about this: they're refugees.

So when you think of a refugee, you think of somebody in a foreign land without really any resources, without any money, certainly without a dwelling place. So you get a sense of what he's talking about here. These are people who are in a foreign land. And he calls them brothers.

Consider It All Joy

Look at verse 2: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." Fourteen times in this book he uses the term brethren. He's writing to people who are followers of Christ.

Now look what he writes: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance." Here's what he says. Look at it. Consider it. Analyze. Reckon. Think about it. Consider a trial when it comes to be a joyous occasion.

He doesn't say consider it all joy if you encounter various trials. He says when. So right away we know something about these trials. We know these trials are inevitable. He said consider it all joy when you encounter. The word has with it the idea of falling into, unexpected. Consider it all joy when these unexpected trials inevitably come into your life.

The Nature of Trials

He uses the term "various trials." It means literally multicolored. They come in all shapes and all sizes. The trials in our life aren't like an SAT test that's all standardized. We give one test to everybody in the room and then we grade it. These are tests that come and they may look like one thing for you and another for you, another for you, another for you, and another for me. They are trials that are customized to you.

Consider it all joy when you encounter these unexpected multicolored trials. Why? When we stop right there and say on the surface that's not my natural response. When a trial comes my natural response is not yeah, all right, here's my trial, praise God I have cancer, yes. That's not my natural response.

But then again he's not writing to natural men and women. He's writing to men and women whose lives have been invaded by the Holy Spirit, who say they're followers of Christ. He's writing to people like you that have said Jesus is Lord and therefore I'm His slave and no longer am I going to act naturally, I am now acting supernaturally.

A Supernatural Response

Don't have the natural response. One of the paraphrases, I think it's the Phillips, says it's something like this: When these trials come, don't resist them as intruders but welcome them as friends. Can we stipulate that that isn't our natural response? So he's saying I want you to act supernaturally.

Even in that case, I don't care how much of a super saint you are, I need a little more than that. Give me an explanation. In fact, I might read it this way: You consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. I might write the word why or how. Why or how would I do that? And the answer is really clear in verse 3: "Because I know the testing of my faith produces endurance."

What Is Being Tested

So all of a sudden here's what he's telling me. What's being tested here is my faith. What does he mean by faith? My faith is that God is who He said He was. That's what he's talking about. It's one thing to say Jesus is Lord. It's one thing to say you really believe Him. But what's that faith worth? One of my favorite shows to watch, and I'm amazed how many people watch this show. Maybe not on a regular basis. It may not be like 24 where you're turning in every week.

At our house, they all pack in there on Monday night to watch 24. They're all in there. And I'll go out and sit on the porch, or I've got to take Ritalin to watch that thing. There's just too much going on for me. I'm not into it. There's a lot of stuff going on. I'll wait until they're all done and just sit and watch them all one day or something.

So they're all watching that. I flip through. Here's a show that I'll stop. And I'm amazed how many people have seen it and are closet watchers of it. Not like 24, but they'll stop and watch it. It's called the Antique Roadshow. All the people watch this show. It's where you bring in something that you think is priceless or something you're not quite sure of, and there's experts there, and they evaluate it.

The Antique Roadshow Lesson

I've watched it. There was a guy one night came in with a blanket. And I'm not exaggerating this. Maybe you saw it. He came in with, I think it was, as I remember, it was a white blanket with blue stripes or a blue blanket with white stripes. I would have called it a throw rug is what it looked like to me. And he walked in, and the guys are a little dramatic sometimes to do the evaluation. He said, "Oh, my word. Oh, my word. I've never seen anything like this." And I am not exaggerating. If I put you in a bus and took you to Walmart, you would have paid 12 bucks for this thing.

He said, "Where did you get this?" And he gave him the story. He said, "Where do you keep it?" He said, "We throw it on the couch. We use it to cover up." And he said, "This is worth five hundred thousand dollars. It's a Navajo rug that somebody made." And I said, "Oh, wow, we won't use it for a blanket anymore or something."

I don't really like those. I like the ones where they come in and they carry this thing in. And the guy goes, "Ah, well, look at here. This is no, let me tell you, based on what it says right here, this is a fake. This is worth about a dollar ninety-nine. What'd you pay for it?" "One hundred and fifty." "Yeah. Got taken." Those are my favorites.

Testing Reveals True Value

But here's what the show does. They establish the actual value of something. It allows me to get a value of this and to evaluate it. They inspect it. They establish authenticity. They sometimes say it's a fraud. They sometimes say it's real. And I don't really know till they inspect it or test it.

Do you get the transition here? Here's what he's saying. He's saying that's exactly what trials are. You say you got faith. We don't know till we test it. So here's what he's saying. You've got these inevitable trials. There are various trials. It's not one size fits all. They arrive unexpectedly. They test your faith and they have a reason. And the reason is to produce endurance in your life.

All of a sudden, if we say running is physical aerobic activity, suffering trials are spiritual aerobics. That's what he's saying. Now, as you're unpacking that and I mean, just tell you, if I'm teaching that, I just spent two weeks on that. That's how I do that. We don't have time.

Asking God for Wisdom

One of the things that happens, though, when the trials come is I can be confused. So look at verse five. He said, if anyone lacks wisdom, all he has to do is ask. And God gives it to him and God gives it to him generously. God gives it to him without reproach. So if I lack wisdom or understanding, all I have to do is ask God.

Now he goes right after that. He says, don't you be a doubter. Verse six, seven, eight, nine, ten, whatever those are. Don't be a doubter. You ask and you believe. And most of us, our problem is not knowledge, it's wisdom. Most of us, our problem is not knowing what to do, it's doing it. If anyone lacks wisdom, all they have to do is ask.

Proverbs chapter one, verse seven, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And fools despise wisdom and instruction." Where do I find wisdom and instruction? I find it in the Lord, in His word.

God Gives Wisdom Generously

So now in my life, as I'm unpacking these things, all I have to do is ask. God gives it to me, it says, literally, generously, unconditionally, without bargaining, without reproach, meaning He doesn't reprimand me. He doesn't say, "you ought to know this by now." He doesn't say, "you were here at the wisdom bank yesterday and you're overdrawn." He says, "I'll give you wisdom."

Now we use that term in a variety of settings. You may go into a meeting, I've been in a lot of these, where somebody says, "Father, we don't have wisdom. We don't know what to do. We're asking you for wisdom here tonight." That's fine. Do it. But the context here is in the context of trials.

You're in the middle of something, let's just, again, stipulate it. It really stinks. You would have never chosen it, but now it's there. How do you respond to that? Well, there's some things that you need to do in the midst of that. You need to understand that God's producing endurance in you. You got to get the big picture. You got to understand God's in control.

Understanding God's Control

Somebody the other day was saying, "so-and-so's a controller." I've never met a person who isn't a controller. Everybody wants to control. And there's only one person in control, and that's God. So in a sense, what we're saying is, when I'm a controller, I'm playing God. That never works out very well. He's God, you aren't.

If you're in the middle of a trial, He's teaching you a lesson. You'd be a fool not to learn it. Come with some realistic expectations to all this. Don't think that you're going to skate through life free. It's not going to happen. When it comes, share its burden.

John Piper's Letter

All that now, to read this letter from John Piper, February 15, 2006. "I write this on the eve of my surgery. I believe in God's healing power by miracle and by medicine. I believe it's right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it's healed by God. He gets the glory, and

The First Three Ways to Waste Your Cancer

That's why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God's plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I'm praying for myself and for you that you will not waste this pain.

So let me stop there. You're going to want a copy of this letter. You're going to have to go to DesiringGod.org. Don't get hung up as you hear this on the word cancer. Take out cancer, put in your trial. Take out cancer, put in a difficult relationship. Take out cancer, give it your economic hardship, whatever the trials are. How can you waste your trial? How can you waste your cancer?

Number one, you will waste your cancer if you do not believe it's designed for you by God. You're going to have a hard time getting all this down if you want to write it down. I know that. But again, I direct you to the website. You'll waste your cancer if you do not believe it's designed for you by God.

I did not say that God only uses cancer, but God does not design it. When God permits it, He permits it for a reason, and that reason is design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, He can stop it or not. If He does not, He has a purpose. If you don't believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you'll waste it.

God's Sovereignty Over All Circumstances

As I've worked through it, that's one of the things I've gotten the most objection to. Here's our basic statement: Everything that comes into your life is either caused by or allowed by God, everything. And we want to praise Him for all the good things that happen in our life, and we want to somehow think that He slipped up on the bad things.

Somebody shot the puck by Him. He wasn't guarding the goal. He dozed off. He got sidetracked with 9-11. It was a busy day. After all, remember, He created everything and had to rest. This must be one of His rest days. And Satan or somebody snuck this one in. No.

Everything that happens in your life is either caused by or allowed by God. And there's a design for it. Even as, why would James say, count it all joy, if there wasn't a design in it? And at least we know the design is to prove that your faith is real.

I will tell you this, out of your trial will come things that you can't even imagine. And if you're obedient in the midst of it, things you can't even imagine that are extraordinary. You'll have a platform to talk to other people about trial. We'll talk more about it in a minute.

Seeing Cancer as Gift, Not Curse

Number two, you'll waste your cancer if you believe it's a curse, not a gift. There's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:1. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, Galatians 3:13. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly, Psalm 84:11.

Doesn't that sound weird? But it again fits with James 1:2, especially if we look at the Phillips. Don't take these trials and resist them as intruders, but welcome them as friends.

Trusting God Rather Than Statistics

Number three, you'll waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God. The design of your cancer is not to train you in rationalistic human calculations of odds. The world gets comfort from odds, not Christians. Some count their chariots, percentage of survival. Some count their horses, side effects of treatment. But we trust in the name of the Lord our God, Psalm 20:7.

God's design is clear, 2 Corinthians 1:9. We felt we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. The aim of your cancer, the aim of your trial, the aim of your difficulty, the aim of your suffering, among a thousand other things, is to knock the props out from under your heart so that you rely utterly on Him.

Personal Experience with Susan's Cancer

We started what, 15, 16 months ago with Susan's cancer, and some of it is a bit surreal just as you're going through it. It's very difficult. There's things that happen. We went to visit the doctor always in teams. And for the first few, we went all four of us, really more than a few. And any time that there was a dialogue going on, we always went at least as pairs and most likely as a team.

And the reason was this. He's talking, and there's so much, you don't hear it all. And you hear something, and you get sidetracked with that, and it takes somebody else in the room. And every time I would leave the office, I would say something, and Susan would say, well, he didn't say that. And I'd say, yeah, I did, sweetie. He said this, and we'd have that conversation.

Well, also now you have not just the doctor, but now you have the Internet. I'm sure many of these physicians, this Internet, WebMD is driving these guys nuts. But it's also a helpful tool.

The Reality of Difficult Odds

When Susan was diagnosed, and then they told us what kind of cancer it was, it was misdiagnosed at the beginning just because they thought it was an infection, but all that came out of it because it's so rare. They came, and they said, listen, of all the types of breast cancer you can get, only 1% of them are your kind. So you kind of go, oh, wow. I mean, if I'm going to win a lottery, I wanted it to be Powerball, not this. This isn't what I wanted.

And as recent as 10 years ago, the survival rate of all the people who got your kind of cancer was 1 out of 100. Okay, not looking so good. But you know, it doesn't even matter. If it's 99 out of 100, you've still got somebody who loses. You only need to lose one of these games. And besides that, it really doesn't really matter what those odds are. Because God's going to do what God's going to do.

God Knocks the Props Out From Under Us

And all in the midst of this process, here's what He does. I love this. He just knocks the props out from under you. We had a great night at church Friday night. And it was kind of a praise and prayer night, and the men led the singing. I love it when our men's quintet lead. I love it. They just do great stuff.

And they took some time to talk. And one of the guys said, you know, I am nothing. And he just talked about that, and I'm nothing.

Of all of us who've been around for a while, we know how to say that. We'd say, "Oh, I'm nothing. I'm a worm. I'm just nothing." Here's the deal. Here's what I said. I had a little card with me, and I wrote myself a little note: "I'm nothing, but I sure act like I'm something." I may walk around saying, "Oh, I'm nothing, I'm nothing," but look at this. And look at this. And look at what I've done here. Look what I did there. Look at the deal I closed here. Look at the woman I attracted here. Look at this swing. Look at this. Look at what I've done. That's the implication.

And all of a sudden, God's not looking for that. God's looking for a guy like John the Baptist who says, "Here's the deal. He must increase. He must get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's not enough. He must increase, and I must decrease. He needs to get toward infinity, and I need to get toward zero." And one of the ways God does that is He just keeps taking these things and knocking them out from under you. Or He gives you something, and you're saying, "I know I can handle this," and pretty soon you're at the end of your rope. That trial is there not to tear you apart to destroy you, but to tear you apart so now He can put you back together.

Don't Refuse to Think About Death

Number four: you'll waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death. We will all die, Piper writes, if Jesus postpones His return. Not to think about it, and what it would be like to leave this life and meet God, is folly.

Ecclesiastes 7:2: "It's better to go to the house of the mourning, to a funeral, than to go to the house of the feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to their heart." Then he quotes Psalm 90, verse 12, which should sound familiar to you if you're around here much, because we use it every year in our Review Preview: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

What a waste it would be if we don't think about dying. I know people who say, "Shh, don't say dying, it might happen." They're like the people that are driving, and they're getting ready to go on a trip, and they say, "Don't say flat tire, we'll have one." No, figure out if there's a spare. You may get a flat tire. You may or may not get a flat tire. I'm telling you, you're going to die.

Some of you have a stack of days that's this high. Some of you have a stack of days that's this high. Some of you have a stack of days that's that high. Some of you have a stack of days that's this high. The point is, you all have a stack. That's the whole point. The whole point is, you're going to die.

And I cannot imagine anything worse than wasting a life. We're getting up towards summer, and this is where I'll hear this from parents of teenagers especially: "I don't want my kid to waste the summer. I don't want my kid to waste the summer. I need him to get a job, or I'm going to send him to tennis camp, or golf camp, or some camp. Anything but parent him. I'll send him to some camp, and I'll do anything but parent the kid." And I don't want him to waste the summer. Let me tell you something worse than wasting a summer: wasting a life.

And one of the things that will motivate you in this world is to understand you have a stack of days. You have no clue how high that stack is. And once they're gone, you're gone too. And whatever you do in this stack of days for the Lord Jesus Christ transitions into eternity for you. That's a huge deal.

Beating Cancer Means Cherishing Christ

Number five: you'll waste your cancer if you think beating cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ. Satan's and God's design in your cancer are not the same. Satan's design is to destroy your love for Christ. God's design is to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ.

God's design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It's meant to help you say and feel, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. To live is Christ. To die is great gain."

Reading About God, Not Just About Cancer

Number six: you'll waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God. It's not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance isn't a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It's meant to put feeling and force behind the command, Hosea 6:3, "Let us know, let us press on to know God." What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

Let me speak again autobiographically. We walked into this cancer thing and we knew probably about like you, not much. And we read a lot and we were given a lot. I am not exaggerating. If we took all the material that's been given to us by people, friends, people like you, well-intended, well-meaning people—this isn't a criticism at all—I'll bet you I have a stack of literature that's two feet high.

And I'm not in this very long when I'm saying to Susan, "Listen, I don't find any benefit in this at all. This is the doctor you chose. This is the radiologist you've chosen. This is the surgeon you have. This is your team. And we don't want to be ignorant here, but we're never going to know. They went to school. We want to be wise in this thing, but I'd rather know the God that created the cancer than know about the cancer." That's just me.

And get the cancer out of there. You can, and I understand, and this is a trap. So your business, you're a financial planner, you're a stockbroker, financial planner kind of a guy. And that is a terrible business in this sense. It just keeps bringing you in more and more and more. The data is massive and it changes daily. It's really a tough deal. And now my whole life is measured by, did I get a gain? Did I get a loss? Are we proceeding? Are we not? And I can be absorbed in that.

In that business, do well in that business, but that can be absolutely an absorbing business. You can get into a hobby. I think it was the Dave Pelz short game Bible. This thing's thicker than my other Bible. Now here's one that God wrote. Here's one that Dave Pelz wrote. I want to know the guy that built the putter, not the guy that tells me how to swing it.

Here's the thing. Satan will come along and now in the midst of this trial, he'll say, "Listen, you got to be prepared. Knowledge is power. Take control of the situation." I can't tell you how many people have said to me, "Listen, Susan can beat this thing." Let me help you out here. She might, but something else is going to get her. I don't mean this to be flip. Something else in this whole process is going to get her. Somewhere she's going to die. Maybe before me, maybe after me, maybe with me. I don't know, but that's the future. I can get so distracted with all these other things that are running around that I miss the truth of what we just said.

Don't Let Cancer Drive You Into Isolation

Number seven: you'll waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepening your relationships with manifest affection. He writes this, and I'm going to skip this paragraph, but in conclusion, don't waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

Here's what happens when I have a problem. I've watched it over and over again. Somebody will have a problem in their life. Maybe it's a kid that goes south. Maybe it's a deal that goes south. Something that has not necessarily humbled them, but humiliated them. What happens is they pull out of PL, they pull out of church. They start withdrawing from their friends. They find new friends, essentially, who will either endorse their behavior or not judge it. So they retreat into this very safe zone that allows them to just wallow in this stuff endlessly.

Because here's what happens in a trial. It goes like this, and you just get pulled into it. Nothing lets you out of it. Everything you read puts it in. Everything you see puts it in. You're so self-absorbed, you're so selfish.

I was watching a show the other night on the Golf Channel, Big Break 5, the girls. I'm into this. That's my version of 24 right there. There's one gal. So when they introduce the gals, we always have a favorite at our house. Somebody has to cheer for someone. I find myself tending to cheer for the prettiest. In this particular case, this year, the prettiest has a little bit as she did last year. But last year, she was pretty with an attitude, but she had a game. This girl just has an attitude and no game.

My brother, who unbeknownst to me, on the other end of the country as we're speaking, is saying, "I've really identified the one I'm cheering for." I said, "Well, let me guess." I gave him the name. He said, "Well, yes, I agree." He finally, by the second night, says, "We need to get this gal off of here. She's awful."

They're interviewing her, and they're talking about different things. She said, "I never think about anybody else." Susan and I said at exactly the same time, "I believe that. I can see that." That's what trials do to you. You never think about anything else. If you're here in the midst of trials, I'll tell you the fastest way out of it: forget about you, focus on God, and find somebody to serve.

Don't Grieve as Those Who Have No Hope

Number eight, and give me a couple extra minutes today. You'll waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope. Paul used this phrase in relation to those who have loved ones that have died. "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

There is grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there's temporary loss: loss of body, loss of loved ones, loss of earthly ministry. But grief is different. It's permeated with hope. "We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Don't waste your cancer as those who don't have hope.

This may sound unusual, but I love doing funerals. I don't like doing weddings particularly, although I'm getting to enjoy them more, but I love funerals. I love the poignancy of the moment. I love the at least temporary teachability of everyone at the moment. When I especially have this family that's together, and there's the grieving widow, there's the spouse in the casket, there are kids, every time I'll say the same thing. I'll say, "I hope you didn't come here for closure."

I hear that all the time. "We just want to get closure." There's no closure. What are you going to get closure? Here's your spouse of fifty years. There's your mom. There's your mother-in-law who you love. They're dead. You think you've got closure? You've got a hole in your heart that's this big that nothing's ever going to fill. That's the beauty of loving them.

I think about that, and I guess this is the dark side, though what I've discovered is everybody's kind of the same. I think about what would happen if Susan died. I think about that moment. I think about these girls, right at these times, both kind of semi-newly married, one with a baby. Our girls are talking to Susan three and four times a day. Not because she's sick, but because that's how they deal with their mom. "What do I do with this? I've got this chicken, and I don't even know what it looks like now. What do I do now? I've got this kid, and he's got this bump. Is that normal?"

So there's Susan. She's dead. They've lost their mother, these boys who have grown to love her. I've lost my best friend, my lover, my friend, my wife. Sure there's tears in the midst of that, but they're tears that are laced with hope. Not this hope—hope, hope, hope, a hope, a wish—but hope meaning I've got the future. She's dead. She's in heaven. I'm here. One day I'll—

Are you going to waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as you did before? What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Are your besetting sins as attractive now as they were before the cancer? Are you wasting your cancer?

Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin, pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination. I find so many people who encounter a trial and have a life-changing experience that lasts about seven and a half days. "Oh, God, get me out of this, and I will never..." "Get me through this, and I'm telling you, God, I'm going to give it all to you." "I might have made a mistake with this, but, God, I'll never do it again."

"God, get me through this deal. I know I made a bad investment. I know it was stupid. I know I was greedy. Let me get out of this, and I'll never do it again." And a month later, you're doing the same thing. Second marriages fail at a higher rate than first. Third marriages fail at a higher rate than second. Fourth marriages fail at a higher rate than third. Somewhere in there, we're stuck on stupid.

The Golden Opportunity for Witness

Number ten: you'll waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ. Here is the golden opportunity to show that He's worth more than life, because in the midst of these trials, everybody's watching you.

The minute they hear you're in a trial, and they hear that you're a follower of Christ, they want to see if all the stuff you said is true. You said He was Lord. You said He was your Savior. You said that nothing could come into your life that wasn't first screened by Him, and He'd never test you beyond that you could endure. You said that He owns it all, and you trust Him with everything, including your life, and now you've got the test, and they're all watching to see if it's true.

It's a great platform for you as God begins to strengthen you, and people say, "I don't know how you do it." It's a great platform for you to say, "I don't either. It's not me. It's Him. I don't have a clue. I wouldn't have chosen it."

A Living Example of Faith Under Fire

I watched Larry up close and personal go through that rheumatoid arthritis that was debilitatingly crippling for him. I watched him go through his cancer. I watched him go through thing after thing after thing. I watched everybody kind of go, "I don't know how he does it."

They watched him shuffle around. He could hardly move. Then you take half his neck to cancer. Then you bring all this other stuff on him, and they're saying, "How much can he take?" And his answer is, "Apparently more, because God keeps bringing it, and He's not going to test me beyond which I can endure, and God's grace is sufficient."

Now that, my friend, is a spiritually mature person. How did he get there? Do you see how we've closed the loop? Through a bunch of trials.

The Wisdom Born from Suffering

It was Larry that said, "I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because I know my suffering obedience is as temporary as my disobedient prospering." That is wisdom. How did he get so smart? He read that book—that's the classroom—and then God took him to the laboratory and beat the snot out of him for a purpose, for a reason, to see him grow.

And so everybody wants to walk around... I remember being at the funeral and having all these people saying, "I want to be like Larry. I want to be like Larry. I want to be like Larry." And I'm saying, "Let me tell you what God's hearing you say: 'I want to suffer. I want to suffer. I want to suffer,' because that's how you get like Larry."

Isn't that what that says? "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, because you know the testing of your faith produces endurance." If you want endurance, if you want to know that your faith is the real thing, here comes the suffering.

DesiringGod.org—you can find that letter in its entirety. Just pray.

Father, thank you for this. And it sounds so weird, God, we thank you for the suffering you'll bring in our life. When we encounter various trials, God, help us understand it's for the testing of our faith. And the testing means literally proving. You're allowing us to understand what's it really worth. Is this the real, genuine article? Because if it is, not only will it survive that test, it'll thrive in the midst of that test. God, do that work in our life. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.