A Perfect Waste of a Perfectly Good Mood

Until now you have not asked anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete. - John 16:24 (NIV)

As I write this, I’m finishing the last leg of my flight from CTCA in Tulsa to my home near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The news in Tulsa was good, I get two more months without the absolutely harsh effects of infused chemotherapy that I’ve endured since my diagnosis for lung cancer over three years ago. My joy is complete – for now...

About three days before my monthly trip back to Tulsa, Lyn Thompson from Pastoral Care called and asked me to write this devotional. I accepted, but only because she asked me to do it. I really didn’t feel very inspired. I was depressed, up-tight, and in a completely dark mood anticipating another 5-day, 24-hour-per-day chemotherapy regimen that I was sure would begin again on Monday. For over a week, as each day came closer to my trip to Tulsa, my anxiety grew and grew. My mood got blacker... I knew the future. I anticipated it. I was “mini-God,” and I set my disposition accordingly.

On Monday, the real God blessed me with good news. The Tarceva is working, the tests results were satisfactory, and I get another two-month reprieve from the five days of harsh chemo. I’m on my way home now. It’s only Tuesday. I feel splendid!

Which brings me to the point of this devotional … I wasted a perfectly good week by taking my eyes off of God and assuming His role. Let me tell you now, I make a crappy god. We all do. But so many of us try to be our own god by anticipating something only the real God knows. Had I known the real future, I would never have spent an entire week in such misery. I just know I will someday learn to trust God for my future and just live in the present. Obviously I hadn’t figured it out last week; maybe this week is the week I finally get it.