Jenn’s post shared about our initial experience of discovering Jenn had brain cancer and some of the lessons about suffering and surrender that came through that. For this post, I’ll share some of my experiences from this past season and also some of the things we’ve received from God out of being brought to a point of surrender.
Our hope for these posts is that the Spirit would point you towards a greater reality and desire for abiding from some of the lessons we’ve learned this past year. If we had to answer the question – why did God have us go through cancer? Our answer would be that He wanted us to learn this lesson, and He wanted us to share this lesson with others.
We’ll list at the end a few of the books and Scriptures that were critical in guiding us towards these lessons, but if I were to recommend just one, it’d be Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. It’s a short read and probably the most impactful book I’ve ever read about life in Christ. And these posts are largely built on the foundations of learning about Union with Christ.
Surrender the Self
Jenn’s main point from the first post is that in order to abide more deeply in Jesus, we have to come to a place of surrender. Sometimes, he uses suffering to bring us to surrender.
What do we need to surrender? Jesus calls us to surrender the ‘self.’ He says in Luke 9, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’ Deny your SELF, and follow him.
To abide, we must first surrender the self. Self-will, self-reliance, self-comfort, self-confidence.
And when we surrender our selves, we can then receive resurrection life and resurrection power in Jesus that is more amazing and glorious and rich than we could have ever imagined.
God brought us to the book of 2nd Corinthians to learn the lessons that He had for us in this season. It’s what I read through in the hospital when Jenn was in her 8 hour brain surgery. The ESV commentary describes the theme of 2nd Corinthians as ‘the relationship between suffering and the power of the Spirit in Paul’s apostolic life, ministry, and message.’
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Most of us know this as the passage about Paul’s thorn. Throughout 2 Corinthians, Paul is making an argument about the legitimacy of his apostleship and ministry. His opponents argued that Paul had suffered too much to be a legitimate apostle. But Paul says that his suffering is the very means of identification with Christ and the way that resurrection power comes through his life.
In the first part of chapter 12, Paul’s talking about these revelations he had 14 years before where he was literally exposed to paradise, to the direct presence of God, hearing such amazing things that he can’t even repeat them. That sounds awesome.
But then here comes the self. From those visions, there was the temptation to become conceited. ‘I must be special, or better than others, because of these revelations that God gave me.’
Pride is at the heart of every sin of self. It’s a belief that we did something or deserve something apart from God. Andrew Murray says, ‘Religious self-effort always ends in sinful flesh.’
And some of these insidious thoughts of pride creep in, even in and especially concerning the things that we do for God:
‘My team is doing really well because I’m a gifted leader.’
‘My family is really healthy because I’m such a good parent and spouse.’
‘I’m a better Christian than those people because I don’t struggle with these sins.’
‘God needs me to uphold this ministry, and we’re seeing success because of my gifts and hard work.’
We would never say these things out loud. We might not even actively think them. But if we’re being honest, our self and our pride believes that we accomplished things apart from God.
There was so much pride and self effort that I didn’t even know I had, so much sin that was embedded with how I thought and operated that I didn’t even know I needed to repent of it. Cancer brought all of these things to the top.
Overnight, we went from leading a thriving, multiplying team and ministry to not being able to do anything apart from Him at all. No amount of self-effort would heal my wife’s cancer. We were taken out from our ability to do ministry, to lead. Our capacity and strength and emotions and giftings all completely failed in the face of death. I foolishly found myself asking the question, “Why did God take us out from our team and ministry when we are the ones holding all of this up?” I didn’t even realize I was believing this lie of pride and self until we were forcibly removed, with no power to change any of it.
Like Paul, suffering brought us to a point of weakness. It was that weakness that revealed this conceitedness and entitlement that we had. We had pride that we’re good leaders, or that we’re seeing fruit in Thailand, or that we run hard in ministry. That our giftings and efforts made those things happen.
Weakness shows you who you really are.
Surrender through Grief
Jenn and I had been meeting with our counselor regularly to help us process the things we were going through in this season. She recommended some exercises to help us grieve the things we’ve lost from this cancer season and even the last 7 years on the field, and to offer them to the Lord. I thought I could knock it out in 3-4 hours.
It took me 3 days.
The beginning of the process was to protest: all the things that were wrong and all the emotions that I felt. I was angry – so angry – and disappointed and anguished, and I unloaded everything at God.
The pain of cancer,
the fear of Jenn dying,
the loss of teammates leaving the field,
the disappointment at disunity in our team and organization,
the rage at racism and hypocrisy in the church,
the loneliness and burden of 7 years of leadership on the field,
the lament that our Thai friends endured such hardship and trial,
and most of all, how far I still felt from holiness and complete abiding.
Physically, mentally, emotionally, I tried to release these things to Jesus – but I couldn’t bring myself to surrender this massive well of pain, anger, and loss.
All I could do was just write the words down:
‘God, I repent of the pride I have in my ministry.’
‘God, I surrender the complete helplessness I feel with Jenn’s cancer.’
And as I wrote, I felt the gentle presence of the Spirit. Tears began to flow down and drop onto the paper where I was writing.
And he brought me to repentance, forgiveness, and surrender.
It took unloading all the pain and grief and burden and helplessness that came from going through cancer and 7 years of leadership on the field for me to realize – I have not surrendered the self. My pride and desire to control continually got in the way of truly surrendering the self and receiving from Jesus all that I needed.
I had no power and no control over cancer or ministry, no way to live or serve without my pride and self getting in the way. The only answer was completely surrendering to Him. We had to put everything on the table. Being in Thailand, our roles, our leadership, our lives, how long Jenn and I would get to have together, all of it.
“God, I surrender all of these things and all of my self to you. Show me what you want me to receive and where you want me to follow you, and we will do only that.”
After 3 days of this, I was completely exhausted. But I began to feel a new freedom and lightness that has persisted since that time. All this pride and sin and self was blocking my intimacy with him, blocking my abiding. He began to remind us of who we are in him, not what other people say we are, not what cancer prognoses say we are. He was showing us that there is much, much more life and power in Jesus that he wants us to receive.
This pride of self is what Jesus wants to release you from. And he’ll even bring a thorn to bring you to the end of yourself, to remind you of your weakness and your need for him. He wants you to surrender your whole self to him.
In Absolute Surrender, Andrew Murray asks:
How do we trust Him perfectly? How do you abide?
By the death of self. The great hindrance to trust is self effort. So long as you have got your own wisdom and thoughts and strength, you cannot fully trust God. But when God breaks you down, when everything begins to grow dim before your eyes, and you see that you understand nothing, then God is coming near, and if you will bow down in nothingness and wait upon God, He will become all.
Surrender to the Point of Death
Why does Jesus go so far to bring us to weakness and surrender?
We see why in 2 Corinthians 4:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
2 Corinthians 4:8-11
The thorn, the afflictions, the weakness are there to bring us to surrender our selves to the point of death. So that the life of Jesus may be manifested in us. So that we could experience the fullness of resurrection life and union with Christ right now.
And He will let nothing get in the way of bringing us to this point of surrender.
One of the hardest days of this past season for me was near the beginning. We were still reeling from everything that had happened and had just arrived in the States and were getting ready for Jenn’s surgery.
We were trying to believe the promises, trying to prepare our hearts for what was coming. I actually felt like I was in a pretty peaceful and surrendered place.
Then, one afternoon, we got the call from our neurosurgeon that the scans were showing that there were some Grade 3 cells in Jenn’s tumor.
It felt like the bottom fell out.
I remember being on the phone trying to hold it together, but felt my heart sink into my stomach.
The average survival rate for people with a Grade 3 oligodendroglioma is 3.5 years.
I was overcome with numbness because of the significance of the fear that I felt about losing my wife in less than 5 years.
I don’t remember most of the rest of that day. I tried to pray and surrender and just couldn’t. Jenn had a phone call with her sister at night and I remember the only option I had was to turn on some worship music.
That night was the most intense and intimate time of worship and abiding with Jesus that I’ve ever experienced in my life. I was just sitting in his presence, weeping, and singing hymns of Jesus’ victory over death and the love of the Father in the midst of suffering. The hymn that was a continual comfort was ‘Abide with Me.’
Abide with me
Fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens
Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail
And comforts flee
Help of the helpless abide with meI fear no foe
With Thee at hand to bless
Ills have no weight
Tears lose their bitterness
Where is thy sting death
Where grave thy victory
I triumph still abide with me
And as I was sitting in the intensity of his love, I started to realize that if Jesus would meet me with the nearest intimacy I have ever felt through the reality of my worst fear – the loss of my wife – then what else could affect me? No matter what happens, I am secure because I have Jesus.
Even if he takes Jenn away, even if our ministry in Thailand gets crushed, even if my own personal health is affected – whatever my greatest fear, Jesus is enough. Jesus is better than all of it.
In the face of death, in the worst possible scenario, when the most important thing in your life is about to be taken away – he meets us with his presence. And his presence is our joy, and it is so rich and intense that you truly feel that you don’t need anything else.
When you are faced with that moment of death to self, and you are able to surrender and trust him completely – it unlocks the ability to surrender everything else in your life. There is no suffering, or failure, or betrayal, or conflict, or sickness, or opposition that has victory over us when we have surrendered to the point of death. Death was destroyed on the Cross, and Jesus will come again to destroy it completely at his return.
Surrendering the self to the point of death unlocks resurrection life and power in Jesus.
Hudson Taylor, in 1870, lost his wife to sickness just a year after he learned about the experience of union with Christ in 1869. He says this in a letter following her death:
“No language can express what [Christ] has been and is to me. Never does he leave me; constantly does he cheer me with his love.
Often I find myself wondering whether it is possible for her, who is taken, to have more joy in his presence than he has given me.”
That is the type of resurrection life and abiding that I want, and it is available for all of us.
But surrender, dying to self has to happen first. Death always precedes resurrection life.
In the last post, we’ll talk about the result of surrendering the self to the point of death – receiving resurrection life and power in Christ.
Questions for Reflection
- Where do you have pride of self in your life or ministry? (You can use Tim Keller’s questions for identifying idols from Counterfeit Gods – what does your imagination, money, disappointment, and emotion center around?)
- What is your greatest fear? Have you surrendered even that fear to Jesus? Are you able to say, like Job, ‘Though he slay me, yet I will trust him’ (Job 13:15)?
- What burdens, losses, and pain have you left unresolved and unprocessed? Where do you need to grieve, lament, and release these things to God?