It was a Saturday morning when my husband called on his way home from our chiropractor, and his tone of voice was serious. “I have to come clean with you about something,” he said. Oh great! What bomb is he about to drop?! I thought as my heart rate began to rev up. My husband is ‘Mr. Happy Go Lucky’ type of personality, when things are bad he makes jokes, what could this be? That’s when he begins to explain that for the last 6-8 months he has had excruciating pain in his stomach that was radiating to his back and he thought he had stomach cancer and didn’t say anything because he did not want to worry me. He then proceeds to tell me that he even looked it up online and figured based on that information that he had about a month left to live!
“So for the last 6-8 months you thought you were dying of stomach cancer?” I asked as if I did not hear him correctly the first time. “And you never thought about going to a Dr.?”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to get that kind of news,” he responded solemnly.
“Ok, but instead you have been worried about it non-stop for months? You know stress, worry and anxiety actually MAKE people sick! Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked trying to be sympathetic although my feelings were hurt that he hadn’t shared this with me sooner.
“I just thought if I could ignore it long enough it would go away, I kept telling myself that I didn’t have stomach cancer and that’s why I’m calling. The chiropractor mentioned that I’ve been in to see him more than ever before and was shocked to see me again this morning. I finally broke down and told him about my stomach problems and the way it’s radiating pain to my back and that’s when I got the news…after asking more questions he told me all my symptoms were ‘textbook’ gall bladder problems, so I’m calling with good news…I’m not going to die! I don’t have stomach cancer!” He’s laughing now and I could literally hear the smile on his face. (In case you’re wondering, I was not laughing.)
What makes faith-filled people so afraid of going to the Dr. and receiving a diagnosis? We know we have heaven, we know who God is, we know God can bring healing, so why the fear?
All of our fears have lies at the root of them. Lies about who God is, what He promises and life in general. So what lies were at the root of his fear?
Here’s several I came up with:
LIE 1)- That telling me would cause me to worry. No, it would cause me to pray!
LIE 2)- That hearing bad news, like “you have stomach cancer” would mean he was definitely going to die. No, God could choose to heal.
LIE 3)- That ignoring the situation would make it ‘go away.’ No, ignoring situations usually makes things worse. We are to face situations boldly, especially situations where we feel our life is being threatened because we have a God that fights for us. He will never leave us or forsake us.
LIE 4) If you did die from cancer, that dying is bad. I understand that we don’t need to be excited about dying, however, God has told us in His Word that ‘to die is gain.’ We also know that we never really die, we just get a new body and reside in a new location.
Is there something going on in your life that you need to ‘come clean on?’ I challenge you to write a list of some of the fears you have that are causing you to live in secret pain. After you write the list of fears you have, write the lies that you’re believing about who God is and what His Word says. Perfect love casts out all fear. Do you really know how much God loves you?
Written by Jamie Shaver