True Faith - Do I Have It?

True Faith – Do I Have It?

            This week we met again with Dr. Tolentino. My blood work was all good, so we were started on injection treatments of Avastin. I had a ninety minute session getting this first treatment. That went well, so now they push that same amount in over 60 minutes in two weeks. If that goes well, we end up with a thirty minute session every two weeks. We will do a blood draw then see the doctor or a nurse practitioner each session. If all looks okay, I get the juice. The main two side effects are an increase in blood pressure, and possible nose bleeds.  I was going to get into boxing, but with the nose bleed thing, I will back off on that plan.

            I have been feeling great for the past few weeks, and still feel good today. God is good.

            I have started to read a book by FB Meyer called John The Baptist. I have always wondered about John The Baptist. He was 6 months older than Jesus, Jesus’ first cousin, and he was beheaded right at the start of Jesus’ ministry. John had quite a following in his short life, and Jesus said of him that there was no greater man born of woman. Imagine Jesus Christ saying that about you!

            That causes me to want to learn more about John, as there is little in scripture about him. We know that he was born to Zacharias and Elisabeth, who were for all practical purposes, beyond their child bearing years. An angel of the Lord appeared to Zacharias (a Jewish priest) and told him his wife would have a son and that he was to be named John. Zacharias, like many of us would, doubted God’s ability to make that happen, so he was struck deaf and dumb. He had to write things on a tablet to communicate.

            I had read earlier that Elisabeth was perhaps the sister of Anne, the mother of Mary. So Mary would have been Elisabeth’s niece. Mary went to visit Elisabeth and to help her in her pregnancy, since Elisabeth was advanced in years. Mary would have been in the early stages of her pregnancy with Jesus, and Elisabeth was in her sixth month. When Mary came into Elisabeth’s house, Elisabeth felt John leap in her womb, and proclaimed something like – How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to see me? This was truly the Holy Spirit acting within Elisabeth, as she could not have known about Mary’s pregnancy. Remember, no texting, tweeting, or facebook back then. Mary responded with her famous Canticle of Mary – that too had to come through the Holy Spirit.

            Pretty cool stuff to me – these were common poor people whom God chose to use to bring His most noted prophet and His Son into our world! John was sent to announce the coming of his first cousin, Jesus. As we all know, Jesus came to announce the Word of God and to die for each of us and open our way into heaven again, after the fall of mankind through Adam and Eve.

            I am reading the book about John now, and I came across an interesting paragraph about the faith of men.

            This is a paragraph about Zacharias and his struggle with faith – “Month succeeded month, but Zacharias neither heard nor spoke. His friends had to make signs to him, for unbelief has the effect of shutting man out of the enjoyment of life, and hindering his usefulness. How different this time of waiting from the blessedness it brought to his wife’s young relative, who believed the heavenly messenger. He was evidently a good man, well versed in the history of his people. His soul, as we learn from his song, was full of noble pride in the great and glorious past. He could believe that when Abraham and Sarah were past age, a child was born to them, who filled their tent with merry prattle and laughter; but he could not believe that such a blessing could fall to his lot. And is not that the point where our faith staggers still? We can believe in the wonder-working power of God on the distant horizon of the past, or on the equally distant horizon of the future; but that He should have a definite and particular care for our life, that our prayers should touch Him, that He should give us the desire of our heart – this staggers us, and we feel it is too good to be true. “

            That sums me up in a nutshell - I believe that God can do anything for anyone. I believe Jesus and his disciples worked miracles in Jesus’ name. My struggle is two-fold – why would God heal me? -  and if I start to say I am healed, and then am not cured of this disease, am I setting myself up for a failure in my faith. I have tried to just go with – “Thy will be done, and not my will.”

To me, that is what God wants of all of us – to have faith in His plan for each of us, and to know that things happen, both good and bad, for a reason.  I do know that if it is God’s plan, He can physically heal me. The problem is, He does not let us know the plan ahead of time.

So we are back to living each day as a gift from God, loving each other with humility and faith, and moving towards our eternal reward in heaven.

Make it a great day, and have some faith in God! He has faith in us!