the testing ground

Fighting for faith on "the testing ground of evils?"

I know what that's like.

Full of heart-ache, constantly having to put the future and the past back into God's hands, constantly preaching the Death-will-be-no-more Gospel to my sorrowful heart...for the past 5 months it feels as though I've been camping out on the testing ground of evil.


But you know what's amazing?
Christ is camping with me.


He's there, when I'm battling tears in the thrift store because look at those adorable baby clothes. He's there, when a friend's thoughtless, condescending comment cuts into the rawest part of my heart. Or when I find out there are new tumors on James' spine; when I get a call from a lawyer trying to sort out family problems gone crazy.


Christ knows.

He's there, standing like a champion fighter watching a young apprentice get beaten with the flat of a sword. "Like we practiced, Cate! Face your opponent! Remember how I taught you to parry? Do it! Imitate me!"


Jesus turns the testing ground of evil into an opportunity to become like Him. Each new encounter with some form of evil serves as a reminder that Christ has defeated it once and for all. All of it.
Even death. 

As David Powlison puts it, Christ has defeated this last enemy:

"Paul describes the Holy Spirit is the unseen, inner ‘downpayment’ on the certainty of life. By faith, the Lord gives a sweet taste of the face-to-face reality of eternal life in the presence of our God and Christ. We might also say that cancer is one ‘downpayment’ on inevitable death, giving one bad taste of the reality of of our mortality. Cancer is a signpost pointing to something far bigger: the last enemy that you must face. But Christ has defeated this last enemy: 1 Corinthians 15. Death is swallowed up in victory. Cancer is merely one of the enemy’s scouting parties, out on patrol. It has no final power if you are a child of the resurrection, so you can look it in the eye."

I admire how John Piper and David Powlison, both diagnosed with prostate cancer, acknowledge how heavy the shadows can be. I also admire how they simultaneously insist/exhort/remind us that God is in absolute control and He can turn every trial (even the heartbreaking ones) into blessings.

"The blessing comes in what God does for us, with us, through us. He brings his great and merciful redemption onto the stage of the curse. Your cancer, in itself, is one of those 10,000 ‘shadows of death’ (Psalm 23:4) that come upon each of us: all the threats, losses, pains, incompletion, disappointment, evils. But in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses: sometimes healing and restoring the body (temporarily, until the resurrection of the dead to eternal life), always sustaining and teaching us that we might know and love him more simply. In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise: James 1:2-5, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39." 

Faith that is deep. Love that is wise. That is what I need, and only Jesus can give it.
He is Light, and only light can cast out darkness; He is Life, and only life can overcome death.


There are a lot of good thoughts in Piper and Powlison's article, thoughts that helped me look at my pain in light of the Cross and resolve not to waste it. Check it out here:  "Don't Waste Your Cancer"