Posted on 1/13/2012 by Margaret Ashmore

“God incarnate is the end of fear, and the heart that realizes the He is in the midst will be quiet in the middle of alarm.” – F.B. Meyer

I once heard a story about a man desperately hanging onto a ledge one moonless night out of fear that he would fall to his death. His terror mounted as he imagined the awful height from which he would plummet. But just when he could hold on no longer, the sun began its ascent and with the dawning light came the great realization and relief that hewas just inches from the ground. Unreliable feeling turned to solid faith. Light dispelled fear. 

It was a lesson I would learn in my journey through illness beginning with the ominous diagnosis from my surgeon, Dr. Sally Knox: “Margaret, you have stage four breast cancer and if we don’t act immediately, you are going to die.”

My heart pounded. I began to shake uncontrollably. It seemed that the night more than any other time would parade its terrifying images of disfiguring treatment and specters of death through my mind. I could identify with that man hanging on the ledge. Living out of emotion rather than the light of truth magnified my fears giving our Ancient Foe a veritable playground to work his woe in spiraling me down into light less despair. 

It may be that your fears of an uncertain future, for a loved one on the path of destruction, for a dwindling bank account or for a yet undetermined diagnosis upon “discovering something suspicious” – find you as palpably anxious and tempted to despair’s abysmal pull. But here, right at this moment is the gospel’s sanctifying, dark dispelling and grace sustaining power if you will choose to look not at the wind and the waves of your circumstances, whether the common stresses of life or completely harrowing – but at a Savior Who stands astride the very thing that threatens to drown you.  

Like the divine Hand that saved Peter from sinking, you will find there is no stronger strand that can lift you from such depths than the knowledge of God’s sovereignty entwined with His indestructible love. There is no safer rock on which to stand and no greater balm for our fears while the tempest of cancer (or anything else over which we have no control) is swirling about than the unimpeachable knowledge that a loving God has absolute supremacy over all things. 

“Souls in danger look above, Jesus completely saves,

He will lift you by His love, out of the angry waves.

He’s the Master of the sea, billows His will obey,

He your Savior wants to be, be saved today.”

Dr. Jay Adams once said, “The sovereignty of God is the ultimate truth that meets the need of every human being.” C.H. Spurgeon called it, “A soft pillow for the human soul. ” Heartened by that truth and sustained by that comfort, I put myself in the care of good physicians while commending all to the One Who tells the ocean waves just how far they can progress before they must recede again into the depths of the ocean (can He not speak thus to a cancer cell?) and to the One Whose voice quells the wind and the waves while designating the path of a lightning bolt. Mine was a free fall into the Everlasting Arms of the Great Physician and peace reigned over a once governing fear. 

God, “the First Cause” (there are no second causes) in “choreographing the molecular dance” allowed rogue cells in my body as a sculpting tool in conforming me to His image, in weaning me from this passing world (II Peter 3:11), in scouring away sin (pride and an ever encroaching self rule are worse malignancies than any cancerous growth – Proverbs 20:30), in clarifying the difference between the temporal and the eternal and in giving me greater empathy for those who themselves are experiencing the vicissitudes of living in a fallen world (II Corinthians 1:4) – great bonuses of grace in light of momentary suffering (II Corinthians 4:17). 

If you are gripped with fear today, look in the Face of Perfect Love. Let go of the people and things that only He can change. (We love to say, “Lord, you love them, I’ll change them!” His answer? “You love them, I’ll change them!) That one step of obedience will illumine many a dark night and there discover that everything touching our lives must first pass through the hands of our Lord, scarred in sovereign love. “In Your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). 

“Nothing can reach us, from any source in earth or hell, no matter how evil, which God cannot turn to his own redemptive purpose. Let us be glad that the way is not a game of chance, a mere roll of dice which determines our fortune or calamity--it is a way appointed, and it is appointed for God's eternal glory and our final good.” – Elisabeth Elliot

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