Don't Waste Your Cancer by John Piper
As a perfect followup to what God is teaching me about suffering and the supremacy of God and seeing and trusting in God's goodness in all things (see "Don't Waste Your Singleness") through the writings of CJ Mahaney and the books of Habakkuk and Job, I found in my inbox John Piper's newest Fresh Words entitled "Don't Waste Your Cancer." The article was written on the night before he went for prostate surgery. Based on the thesis that cancer exists for the glory of God, Piper lists ten ways in which one will waste his/her cancer. Praise God that He has given John Piper eyes of faith to see God and His glory in his cancer and take joy in it.:Dont Waste Your Cancer
February 15, 2006
I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in Gods power to healby miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not Gods plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.
1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him (Job 42:11). If you dont believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.
2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel (Numbers 23:23). The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11).
3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). Gods design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.
4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. How can you lay it to heart if you wont think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.
5. You will waste your cancer if you think that beating cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
Satans and Gods designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. Gods design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And to know that therefore, To live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).
6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.
7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.
When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Dont waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.
8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary lossloss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is differentit is permeated with hope. We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Dont waste your cancer grieving as those who dont have this hope.
9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastinationall these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Dont just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Dont waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? (Luke 9:25).
10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.
Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my names sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Dont waste it.
Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
Pastor John
Update 2/28: Tom Shrader responds to this in light of his wife's cancer
1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
He begins, It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. Actually, thats exactly the truth of the matter. Nowhere does Scripture in any way, shape or form teach or even allude to the idea that God designs objects of darkness. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). Countless other passages speak of Gods shelter over us and His providence. Romans 8 speaks of His working all things together for good The phrase work together is the Greek word sunergeo, which speaks of business, employment, undertaking, enterprise, accomplishment, art, industry. These are all intentional, goal-oriented projects. Cancer is a sickness, unintended in perfect life. Never will I declare it to be good. It was spawned by the evil of sin and remains in a state of corruption. Yes, what God permits, he permits for a reason, but the key word is permits. He uses it, works together for good. He takes what is in and of itself evil and fashions circumstances by His sovereign hand to turn out for the good. Never at any point is that cancer, heart attack, hepatitis, emotional pain a design of Gods. Why ever would Jesus have chosen to heal if these things were designed for the men and women that were plagued by them? The circumstances, I will uphold, are designed, and with a specific outcome in mind our sanctification/glorification (Romans 8) but never will I support that disease is Gods design. God gives Satan permission to afflict Job; He is never the source of the affliction. the evil that the Lord had brought upon [Job] is a direct rendering of aim as the English assumes, but rather a carrying through. The Hebrew word (bow’ ) is never used as targeting, but rather as a process, such as walking from one place to another.
If you dont believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste itYou will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift. The cancer itself is a curse. It is a manifestation of the ruin of sin; not a gift. If it is a gift, then so is all affliction, and we should seek any and all afflictions just as we seek pleasures. No. It is circumstances that God orchestrates, and it is His favor upon us that is the gift. That is why we rejoice in our afflictions. If cancer itself were the gift, then those apart from His favor should rejoice as well, but they do not; they cannot. Never will one of His own waste their cancer, but rather, they will waste the opportunities that God in His goodness brings through their cancer.
Piper sometimes gets too carried away with his idea of Christian Hedonism. His creed too often takes over the harmonious antinomy that is found in Scripture because creeds are snappy and fitting. Its not so easy. The death of Jesus is both hideous and beautiful. Never will I support that the exclusive act of His death was good. Nothing about a man dying is good; and infinitely severe is the Father pouring His eternal wrath out upon Himself. Rather, it was what was accomplished as a whole that was good. Yes, we should seek satisfaction in Christ, but that is in Christ Himself; not all things simply because they have been allowed by Him.