People talk about fighting cancer. I must admit that appeals to a competitive streak in me but I wonder just how helpful it is to think in those terms. How do you fight it? Certainly maintaining a positive frame of mind, eating as well as you can, exercising to some extent - all of this helps. But in the end you are in the hands of the doctors and what they think is the best way through. You have to be content to be in a largely passive position where instructions are given and things happen to you and you are called to trust in the judgement of the experts. I don’t use that word in a Michael Gove way. I actually believe in experts. There are people who know better than I and I am glad that they are with me in this moment.
Even more important than placing myself in their hands, however, is the trust I am called to place in my God. I often think of David when he returned to Ziklag with his men to find it destroyed by fire and their wives, sons and daughters taken captive. ‘David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.’ (1 Samuel 30: 4). David found himself isolated and under threat of stoning from his resentful men but ‘David found strength in the Lord his God.‘ How did he find that strength?
First of all, he had the promises of God. He had been assured that he would come through this time of uncertainty, harassed and harried by Saul, and become King of Israel. Secondly, his instinct when faced with this crisis was to ‘enquire’ of the Lord. (1 Samuel 30: 8) He realized the presence of God to know His will.
This is the way forward in developing my trust in my God. I need to focus on the promises that are given to all God’s people, not least the assurance that all things work to the good of those who love the Lord. And prayer should be as the Apostle Paul envisaged it, continuous. These are the means whereby strength is gathered. In the end, if there is a ‘fight’ then it is not with the cancer but with myself and being able to say with the Psalmist: ‘I trust in you, O Lord; I say “You are my God.” My times are in your hands . . .’ (Psalm 31: 15).
