Keeping Appointments

In the early weeks after my cancer diagnosis, I endured multiple doctors’ appointments each week. Once my radiation began last November, I visited the cancer center daily, five days a week, excepting weekends and holidays for twenty-eight days.

Chemotherapy meant seeing the doctor and having labs drawn on Monday, a four hour session in the infusion center on Tuesday, and wearing an infusion pump home until I returned on Thursday afternoon to have the pump disconnected from my port. I rested the following week and repeated this process for a total of sixteen weeks, or eight cycles.

I looked forward to the day when my follow up appointments would be three months apart, and eventually six months and one year. Now that I’ve reached the every three month phase, the time between appointments still seems too short! However, I know that my doctors have my best interests in mind, so I stick to their schedule.

I am confident that my Creator God has good plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11), so I trust His timetable for my life. As I walk with Him each day, I am continually learning to respond to His promptings, to hear His still, small voice, and to rely on His navigational ability. He is working all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose for them (Romans 8:28). That includes me.

When Jesus was on the earth as a man, He traveled about in a fairly limited area and He never stayed in one place for very long during His ministry. He didn’t stop to talk to every person. He addressed and fed the masses and invited parents to bring their little children to him to be blessed. He chose twelve men to follow Him. He befriended two sisters and their brother. He was always at the right place at the right time. Is that even possible for us?

I keep my calendar on my phone and do my best to add commitments and reminders so that I don’t forget. During some of the busiest times in my life, I get this panicky feeling, certain I’ve overlooked something important, but my best days are the ones where I have no set schedule, zero obligations. I can see the hand of God best in my life when I assume the least control.

Jesus’s movements were calculated by the times he spent communing with His Father. Mine should be as well. He gravitated toward solitary places. Even though He was God wrapped in flesh, His humanity required the same sort of discipline He expects from me. He set an example for me to follow.

After what must have seemed like an endless day and night of ministry, “At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

Luke 4:42-43 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/luk.4.42-43.NIV

In this one instance alone, I see how very differently I would have responded in His situation. After twenty-four crazy hours, my withdrawal to a solitary place would have been for sleep, and if people came begging me to stay, I’d immediately start looking for ways to help. I probably would’ve moved in with Simon and his mother-in-law, at least for awhile, but Jesus chose to move on.

On another occasion, Jesus crossed a lake from Galilee and was met by a demon-possessed man. He never got further than the edge of town and the people begged Him to leave! He healed the man, but no matter. They saw something that frightened them, something they could not easily explain, so they turned Jesus away. He didn’t threaten or cajole. Luke simply says, “He got in the boat and left.” (Luke 8:37)

After Jesus healed Lazarus, He moved about under threat of death. The religious leaders completely misunderstood His intentions, and perceiving Him as a threat, they plotted to kill Him.

“Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, “What do you think? Isn’t he coming to the festival at all?”

John 11:54, 56 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/jhn.11.54-56.NIV

What would it take for me to trust God so completely that His Spirit would easily override my human nature? Only His Spirit is strong enough. My will power is not enough. Good intentions won’t cut it. No amount of self confidence or determination will do.

Imagine a large jar of beads- the kind my niece weaves into her Rainbow Loom bracelets or are often braided into little girls’ hair. Now picture that jar upended, beads bouncing everywhere, finally coming to rest where they meet resistance or the momentum drains.

If you and I were to look on during that split second when the jar is tipping, we would feel the helplessness of knowing we’d never reach it in time to stop what was about to happen. If we were seeing a slow motion video of the beads midair, falling, bouncing, scattering, we might shake our head just imagining what a mess there will be to clean up. Once the beads lie still on the floor, can we recognize any pattern or picture in the mess?

My trust in the providence, in the sovereignty of God means that even though there’s nothing I can do to stop or change a situation, in spite of the mess that I can’t imagine cleaning up, even if I cannot see anything recognizable as good or right in the outcome, I am confident that my God can. My assurance lies not in the fact that I believe God could have done something or can clean up the mess, but that He knew where each bead would fall, how it would bounce, and that He influenced its movements and directed its landing place. He is at work all the time in all things.

And God always see the bigger picture. He is the artist whose brushstrokes appear random and messy even, but with patience, a beautiful scene emerges. This is no still life, lifeless sculpture or three-dimensional replica. This is a living, breathing, constantly morphing masterpiece!

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Ephesians 2:10 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.2.10.NLT

This is the life of faith. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

Lord Jesus,

Rule over me today. Override my humanity and let me walk in step with Your Spirit. Your thoughts and Your ways are so much higher than mine, but I trust You to work all things out according to Your perfect plan. It is indeed “hard for us to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14), useless to resist Your will, for “many are the plans in a man’s heart, but Your purpose will prevail.” (Proverbs 19:21) For this and so much more, I praise You, Lord.

In Jesus’s name I pray.

Amen.