If you or someone you know is struggling with breast cancer, let them know that God doesn’t delight in the horror and torture of it all. Open your eyes to see God’s wide-angle view of cancer – he sees a mosaic stretching into eternity, which includes his wonderful plan for you.
Diagnosed With Breast Cancer booklet, free offer link below:
God permits all sorts of things he doesn’t delight in.
Okay, like cancer for one. Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and when you or a friend is diagnosed with cancer, it’s so important to remember that fact. Cancer is an awful thing. A disease like cancer is a result of the fall; it’s part of what it means to live in a terribly broken world and God takes no pleasure in it. Yet! God permits all sorts of things he doesn’t delight in, like even cancer. Now I know that sounds audacious, but Lamentations 3:32-33 sheds light on this enigma. Because the Word of God says, “Even if he, God, causes suffering, he will show compassion according to the abundance of his faithful love. For he does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on mankind.” Did you read that? Yes, he brings grief, but it doesn’t give him joy in doing it. Yes, he permits awful things to happen, but he doesn’t get a kick out of seeing us squirm! It’s a paradox. God allows something he hates; and he does so for good reasons.
You see, God’s ways are so much higher than ours that he has the capacity to look at your cancer [or anyone cancer] through two lenses – both a narrow lens and a wide-angle one [this is an analogy I’m borrowing today from Dr. John Piper]. When God looks at a disease through a narrow lens, he sees the heartbreak for what it is. It’s awful. And God feels the awfulness of it as well. He feels the sting in his chest when your doctor says, “The tests show you have cancer.”
However, when God looks at your condition through his wide-angle lens [as Dr. Piper says], he sees it in relation to everything leading up to it and flowing from it. He sees how your battle against cancer is going to strengthen your faith, make you more prayerful, make you come to him in need. He sees how your courageous battle against cancer inspires and encourages your friends, he sees how it gives you empathy toward others in the chemo clinic, how it draws you and your family closer together and how it gives you a platform to share your story. God also sees how your patience and endurance in your cancer battle is showing the unseen world how sustaining the grace of Jesus Christ really is. And there is so much more. All these things are God’s wide-angle view of your cancer. Like Piper says, “God sees a mosaic stretching into eternity, and it is this mosaic with all its parts, both good and bad, that includes his wonderful plan for you.”
Oh friend in the span of a single verse in Lamentations 3, the Bible says that the Lord brings grief, yet he does not willingly [that is, from the heart] bring that grief. It’s part of God’s sovereignty that impacts not only you; it impacts him. Because God tried this whole idea out on himself. He willed the death of his own precious son, but he took no delight in the horror and torture of it all. God saw though, how the death of Jesus would bring people to salvation. And that’s something important to remember if you are in a battle against cancer. And because October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, I share all this and more in my booklet “Diagnosed with Breast Cancer.” I myself have wrestled with this terrible disease, and I’d love to send you what I wrote about it. So, if you know someone struggling with cancer, ask for my breast cancer booklet. Look for your free gift – it’s all yours at joniradio.org. God bless you today and thanks for listening!
© Joni and Friends