—What I learned from a cancer diagnosis and being hospitalized.
My wife and I prayed and decided that I should go to our doctor, who after looking at the blood test results, called emergency at the hospital to let them know I was coming. The doctor had no idea what the problem was, but the blood test clearly showed that whatever I had was no ordinary sickness.
The prognosis
At the hospital, they gave me several tests, and in the evening, a doctor sat us down to explain their findings. It seemed that I had a large black abscess on my gallbladder and liver, and that under this black mass, I had liver and gallbladder cancer. Later, after taking more tests, the doctors believed that the cancer may have metastasized into my spine. An operation was out of the question, because it could easily cause the cancer to spread.
My daughter, who had come with me, was shocked. To her it seemed almost like a death sentence, and she communicated my dire condition to her siblings.
I was immediately hospitalized and put on an IV drip of the strongest antibiotics the hospital had to try to shrink the black mass and bring my fever down so that they could see how bad the cancer was underneath.
My mind was the battlefield
From the time I heard the doctor’s prognosis and saw the deep concern on my daughter’s face, I knew that I couldn’t even begin thinking about how this could play out or I’d be sunk. Everything in my mind wanted to gravitate to the words of the doctor, but I knew I couldn’t.
I could have so easily defaulted to “Oh my God! My life is over! Oh God, there is so much I need to do! My whole world just fell apart. This is terrible, beyond terrible! Where’s my bucket list!” That was easily how I could have reacted if I had opened the door to fear.
I think my daughter initially thought I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. But that wasn’t the case at all. I was taking it very seriously, so much so that I knew that what I needed, desperately needed, was the Lord’s view of this. Somehow, by God’s grace, I was able to shove the problem to a corner of my mind until I could pray about it and hear from heaven. That might sound a little too easy peasy, but this was way beyond simple positive thinking. It took all my willpower to keep my mind off of what I had just heard, or else I would have been washed away in a mental tsunami and be a dead man walking.
Hospital wake-up time was 6:00 a.m., and I finally got my chance to sit up in bed and hear from the Lord. The wheels of my mind were ever ready to start spinning away with thoughts of cancer, chemotherapy, operations and dying, but I knew I couldn’t go there. I claimed Isaiah 26:3: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” I knew that I had to keep my mind on Jesus, but I also knew that I didn’t have that perfect peace which I sorely needed.
I didn’t have the faith for much right then, except I knew that I had to force my mind to recall different Bible verses and promises until I could hear from the Lord.
When it seems like all hell is trying to take over your mind with fear, to keep your mind on Jesus is no small feat. Maybe that was a little taste of what Jesus went through during His 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan. Over and over I just commanded my mind into submission until I could pray and get the Lord’s view on my situation.
The first prophecy
Finally, I laid the situation before the Lord in prayer and asked Him to speak to me. I had never been so desperate to hear from heaven as I was then, and He came through wonderfully.
I clung to those words and went over them again and again and again and yet again. I proclaimed that message from the Lord. I spoke it out loud. I sent a copy to my wife. I told friends about it over Skype. I absolutely knew that the Lord had given me those words in prophecy, and I was showing my faith and holding Him to it.
Here is the prophecy:
I will work decisively on your behalf. I am the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for Me? (Jeremiah 32:27). You are My child and under My care. I have heard your prayers and I will heal you (2 Kings 20:5). This light affliction is but for a moment and will work an exceeding weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Be ready, because after this, you will be busy.
I will work a work that none will be able to gainsay or resist. “Stand back and see Me fight,” saith the Lord. It’s My turn now, and as I am, I want you to be. The battle is not yours but Mine.
Right away I looked up the definition of decisive. Decisive: No hesitation, indisputable as in a decisive victory, commanding. There was a lot in that message. I wanted some clarification, which I asked the Lord about over the next few days.
Shortly before I was hospitalized, after I had felt run-down and had a fever, the Lord gave me the following. At the time, I thought it was a general prophecy about healing, since I had been studying and learning about healing.
No good thing will I withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). I have great mercy on all My children, and I know that the enemy is playing for keeps and fighting hard to destroy your faith in Me and My great love for you. I know this, and I will do all that I can, within the limits I placed upon Myself and your free will, to bring about the healing. But I put some of the responsibility for the healing in your corner.
Keeping my mind focused and full God’s Word
Every morning at 6:00 a.m. a nurse would change my IV, take my temperature, and often take a blood test. After that, I was left pretty much to myself. That’s when I would sit and listen for anything the Lord wanted to show me that day, plus ask Him any questions I had, and I would read my Bible, and write down verses that spoke to me.
That still left much of my day free for my mind to wonder away, which I didn’t dare let it. It’s so easy for me to space out for just a few seconds (it’s a talent I have), only to realize that the seconds have turned into minutes, and I’m wandering off the path and way down some rabbit hole and into thickets of mental bramble bushes. The battlefield was clear; it was my mind.
Finding peace
I’ve read and studied about faith most of my adult life, but at that time in the hospital, that wonderful peace and full assurance of faith was something that I knew I didn’t have yet.
I hadn’t realized it yet or put it into words, but even more than to be healed, I was praying for peace of mind and heart, for the full assurance and faith that I could rest in Jesus’ love for me, that He was watching over every detail of my life, and that I had absolutely nothing to fear or be stressed over.
I knew I should pray for healing; the Lord promised healing as part of the atonement. But even more than healing, what I wanted most was a deep all-enveloping peace in my heart, for the stormy waves in my mind to cease, the waters to become calm, and magical moonbeams to sparkle into every corner of my heart. No stress, no wondering if I am missing something, no regrets, no trying to work up faith, no “I’m a fighter. I can handle this, I’ll beat this.” Just peace, that touch of eternity that lets me know that I am in the hands and care of an all-loving Creator who is always here to answer my call and bring all heaven to my assistance and side whenever I ask. It’s knowing that my soul is under the protection and care of a loving Father. It’s knowing that this loving Father loves to transform into good any evil that befalls me. Even when I make mistakes, even horrible mistakes, love will transform those mistakes for good, and love will permeate and fill every fiber of my being.
“Let the peace of God rule your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). This is a peace where nothing is bubbling below the surface.—No crippling fear, no stress consuming my thoughts, no negative thoughts that keep resurfacing, no wrong that God hasn’t forgiven, no regrets. Nothing but a mirror-like calmness in my heart and mind, reflecting the love of my Father, and refracting that peace out into the space around me.
“There is no fear in love. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).
Keep fighting
Even though I didn’t feel full of inner peace and faith, by God’s grace I kept trusting in the words He had given me, and I continued digging into the Word. I also found many good healing testimonies and Bible classes about healing on the Internet. There is a wealth of good healing-related programs on YouTube. The more the Word flowed through my mind, the better.
A couple of months before, I had stopped listening to the news and would just read the headlines. The news had become so filled with negativity and fear that I could sense that it was no good for me. Especially then, in the hospital, I didn’t want any intake that wasn’t positive and faith building. At night I would try to find a Bible movie to watch before I slept so I could go to sleep thinking about God or Bible heroes, and that was a big help.
Boredom and lying in bed all day were big challenges when I was hospitalized. I decided that lying and sitting in bed all day wasn’t doing me any good, so I took a walk three times a day up and down the corridor. Back and forth, back and forth. I got to talk to different nurses on my hallway walks. I memorized their names.
Doctor’s update
The doctor set up an update meeting with me, and insisted that my family also be there so that they could understand the severity of my condition. I think he was also hoping that they could help knock some sense into me. The doctor seemed to think that I wasn’t taking the prognosis seriously enough. I was calm, happy, and trusting, which was not the reaction that the doctor was trained to expect.
Every day was pretty much the same—IVs, blood tests, temperature checks, MRIs or CT scans, Echos, X-rays and more, while the doctors waited for the black abscess to shrink enough to be able to know the severity of the cancer.
Witnessing opportunities
There was a man who moved into the bed next to me, and he joined me for one of my walks. It wasn’t speed walking, but at least it was movement. (It’s hard to walk quickly in slippers and pajamas, while pulling an IV stand.) He was so surprised at all the nurses who knew me and talked with me. He said, “You have so many friends here.” He has stage-four pancreatic cancer and was told that he didn’t have long to live. I got him a New Testament and prayed for his healing, and I prayed with him to receive Jesus. After that, he stuck to me like glue and just wanted to be around me. (Our prayers, love and encouragement are always in demand.)
Every day my doctor would come in and check on me and let me know the latest test results. One day he seemed mildly surprised that the large black mass was shrinking so fast. The Lord was working “decisively.”
Due to COVID-19, no visitors were allowed, so my floor stayed pretty quiet. My wife couldn’t visit, but every evening we would use Skype and talk and pray together. She also sent out a prayer request. It was great to have my wife and others who supported me with their prayers.
“As I am, I want you to be”
During one of my morning prayer times, I asked the Lord to clarify one point in the prophecy I received. He said; “I will work a work that none will be able to gainsay or resist. Stand back and see Me fight. It’s My turn now, and as I am, I want you to be.” He explained this to me as follows:
I do all things well. I am not halfhearted. I am fully engaged right now and with you. That’s how you need to be with others. Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). This is the missing ingredient—stepping out on My Word with all your might, not just halfway. Putting yourself all out there shows you have faith in My words to you and your position and authority as a child of God. In nothing be halfhearted.
Follow the steps. The steps of a good man (you) are ordered by the Lord (Psalm 37:23). You see a need, you hear of a need, jump on it. The days of procrastination are over. It is time for action. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). To encourage faith, to lead in faith, you must act. Show and tell. My children need this so much right now.
I fought for you, now go and fight for others. Everything I did was an example for you to follow.
I want you to turn your life around and be to others what I am to you. It’s a tall order, I know, but I wouldn’t ask it of you if you couldn’t do it. You will never do it perfectly, but you will do it well.
Didn’t I say, be Me in this world? Look back and see (1 John 4:17, 2:6, John 17:18).
Didn’t I say, you are My hands and feet; that you are a reflection of Me in this world? (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Didn’t I say, “Love one another, as I have loved you”? (John 13:34, 15:12).
Didn’t I say, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another”? (John 13:35).
Didn’t I say, “You who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak”? (Romans 15:1).
Read Matthew 22:37–41. How can a man say that he loves God who he hath not seen, when he loves not his brother who he hath seen? (1 John 4:20–21). Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18). As He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17; John 17:18).
Jesus was telling me that He was working “decisively” on my behalf, with no hesitation, indisputably as in a decisive victory, commanding, and that I was to stand back and watch Him work. But then, after He set the example and fought for me, I am to turn right around and work decisively on others’ behalf, with no hesitation, indisputably as in a decisive victory, commanding. Jesus promised to heal me, but He expects me to go and bring His healing, help, supply, and encouragement to others.
In the first prophecy He also said, “Be ready, because after this, you will be busy.” So, He’s also expecting me to get going.
Kick-start your new life
Jesus continued speaking in prophecy:
You are ready. You will never be “ready” in your own eyes, but in Mine, you are ready.
No testimony without a test, and you will have a testimony. Learn to put it all out there. Speak faith, live faith. Be an example of overcoming faith.
It is no accident that you are here to kick-start your new life. For it is God that worketh in you, both to will, and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). I knew it was what you wanted, and I brought it about in a way that I knew would be best. My ways are not your ways.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice (Philippians 4:4).
You are not absolutely 100% resting in My words to you. Stand on them, proclaim them, plus any other promises from My Word. Either I am the God who healeth thee (Exodus 15:26), who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases (Psalm 103:3), or I am a myth. That’s the place where I am taking you, and where you need to be, the place where you have unshakable faith in the Word of God. Though all hell assails you, you stand on the Word of God. I have given you a believing heart.
Don’t look at your faith; look to Me. Don’t look at the impossibility; look at My possibilities. Stand back and watch Me deliver. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee (Psalm 91:7).
I have to take you to a place of complete faith and trust and rest, because what is coming on the world’s stage is the complete opposite. Your spirit will need to be totally positive against the negative.
Years to rest and reevaluate our faith
In 2010, my wife and I left full-time mission work, but continued our volunteer and mission activities part-time. We also established a language school that turned out to be a good means of income, while at the same time giving us an avenue to witness. During this time, the last of our children left home and started living on their own. But more than that, these past years have been a time of rest, and a time to reevaluate our faith.
For the past several months I had been increasingly more desperate to hear from the Lord about what He wants us to do. I have been taking more time regularly to hear from Jesus and dig into the Word. With COVID-19, social and economic turmoil, and the world situation changing quickly, I was sensing that more will soon be required of us, His children, and that the days of reevaluating, resting, and relative ease are coming to an end, and that Gideon was making another call to the battlefront.
Jesus spoke to me saying:
I want to give you joy in your labors, excitement in your journey, and anticipation of all that I am going to do. That’s what I want to do for you, but you have not been desperate enough to lay hold of this simple principle of faith.
Many have come to the crossroad just like you. I lay before all My children the choice, whether they want it all or are content with just some. Some is still a lot, because you have salvation, and a knowledge of My Spirit and its workings, and have learned a great deal more than many. I would not fault you for wanting to slow down some, all the while staying true to Me and your calling to show love to those around you.
But if you want more, it will cost you. It will take commitment, time, energy, looking foolish, and changing the course of your life. You can do it, but it will be difficult. But at least if you try, you will be further ahead than you would be if you hadn’t tried. It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all. But you won’t fail. Forward progress is not failure.
I cannot tell you who My Father will raise up, for that is yet to be determined by the choices people make, but I can tell you this; that no one is stopping you from becoming one of them.
Set on a new trajectory, a new path for a new day
I feel like the messages that the Lord was giving me could apply to any true follower of Jesus. He wants each of us to see how special we are in His sight and how important each of us is to His plan.
“Get ready for a move of My Spirit.” How do I get ready? Jesus replied as follows:
This has set you on a new trajectory, a new path for a new day. The old is passed away and is no more. Now you must take on the new and forget the past.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast (Psalm 33:6, 9). My words are like that. “Say in a word, and my servant shall be healed” (Luke 7:7).
Believe it you must, for this is the heritage I have chosen for you. Now it’s your turn. I gave you an example to follow. You are as Me upon the earth now. I will do through you what I would do if I were there in the flesh. You are the vessel I will work through. You are the temple that I will put My Shekinah Glory upon (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16).
Find the authority of the Word, and faith will come of itself. I said to stand back and see Me fight.
Abraham looked not at his own body, but at the promises:
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform (Romans 4:19–21).
Step out of yourself and into My Spirit. It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63).
Once you step out on the water again, you will want to stay there for the rest of your life. Once you throw water on the sacrifice, you will want to throw water on every sacrifice, just to prove the power and might and love of God. Once you do that, you will be consumed with staying and living in that power.
What is it all for? To bring My love, healing, growth, supply, and encouragement into every corner of this earth. You will simply be an agent of My love, an instrument of My peace. That’s a good prayer.
Teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20). I would that you were hot, not cold. I want you to be hot, a fanatic, totally sold on the product. Those are the greatest salesmen. I want you thinking My thoughts and singing My songs. Yes, to the world you will look like a fanatic, but to Me, you will be My cherished vessel that I am able to pour through.
I would that you be hot, not cold. That’s My desire for all My children. I am hot, passionate, ready to move, on the go, turned on, excited, never-a-dull-moment guy. That’s who I am. Love, compassion, and faith are doing words. You don’t sit and do nothing with those words. They are action words.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63). They move. Action and movement are signs of life. When the Spirit moves, there is change and life. You are full of My life and My Spirit. You are full of change, renewal, and life. I effect change. I am not stationary. I am constantly effecting change in this world. I am on the go. Now go!
Actions speak louder than words. Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18). But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only (James 1:22).
I had compassion on them and healed them. You have compassion by faith; now go and heal them. Everything from now on is by faith. You don’t have to feel anything. You don’t have to feel healed to be healed. You don’t have to feel loving to be loving. You don’t have to feel faith to have faith. You don’t have to feel like doing something to do it.
Do you see? It’s all by faith from now on. You praise and thank Me by faith. You listen for My voice by faith. You are alive with My life and by My life. You pray by faith. You believe by faith.
When I say, “Go in faith and slay the giants of your day,” you can go and slay the giants. You don’t look at the size of the giants and weigh out the options. You go and attack, and I do the rest to fulfill what I asked of you. You just believe and go. If you think, you sink. Spiritual warfare bypasses the mind.
The psalmist proclaimed, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted” (Psalm 119:71). You see, no good thing will I withhold from you, even afflictions. You’ve got to see everything that comes into your life in the same light. I sent it or I allowed it for your good. It gets you to seek Me more. It gives you challenges and hurdles to overcome to strengthen you. Now no chastening (correction, training) for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby (Hebrews 12:11).
But for you who see My hand at work, it can become joyous as you see all things at work in your life to the point where you shout: “Bring it on! If I need it to make me stronger, then so be it. I accept that You allowed it, even if the devil brought it. And I will scale this mountain by the grace and strength of God, and I will be stronger and wiser from doing it.”
That is the proclamation of a child of God: “I will attack each and every problem and obstacle in my life with how I can, not with why I can’t.”
The turning point
This was a turning point for me. On my morning hallway walk I felt like shouting it out loud. “Bring it on! If this is what I need to keep me close to You and kick-start my calling, then go for it! Do it! Keep the heat on until it sinks in.” It felt so liberating to say that. I was finally seeing this affliction as one of the “all things that work together for good” (Romans 8:28).
In almost all of my prayer times the Lord said, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), and I did thank Him for everything He was doing in my life, but it wasn’t until that morning that I actually and whole-heartedly felt thankful for being there.
The Lord also told me several times to “sit back and enjoy the journey.” How does someone in a hospital with a potentially life-threatening sickness enjoy the journey? But over and over He told me that, until that morning, when it finally sunk in.
Practically every message Jesus gave me started with: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23). I believed that, but I will honestly say that it didn’t fully sink in until that morning.
“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). “Rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). All these verses seem counter-intuitive when someone is hooked up to tubes, lying in a hospital, and hearing the doctors’ grave proclamations over their body.
Up until that morning I was fighting the good fight and staying in the Word and praying, but I knew in my heart that I was still not fully lifting my arms up in the air, letting go, and trusting completely in God’s promises and goodness.
But that morning it clicked! “Bring it on! This is great! He promised to heal me, and He told me to sit back and enjoy the journey. He told me that He was kick-starting the next phase of my life, and He’s given me all this time to relax, read, study, and hear from heaven. I mean, this is great! God is doing it! Hallelujah!”
I can’t fully describe how energizing that was—to be free from trying to keep the faith, and to simply trust and enjoy what God was doing in my life. Just having that full trust released a wonderful peace, positive energy, and healing power.
I felt like Captain John Paul Jones, with his ship taking on water, burning, and most of his crew either injured or killed. When Captain Pearson of the other ship yelled out across the water and asked if Jones was ready to surrender, without a moment’s hesitation Captain Jones yelled right back, “Hell no! We haven’t even begun to fight yet!” And he went on to win the battle.
Your life should be one big exclamation point!
Here’s another message Jesus gave me:
That needs to be your declaration also to whatever life and your enemies throw at you. “Hell no! I haven’t even begun to fight yet! Bring it on!” Quitters never win, but winners never quit.
Just making it alive day after day is not the answer that the world is looking for. They want to see overcomers, people consumed with a vision and goal and a reason to live that inflames them and sets them head and shoulders above the multitude. The world is looking for the lights of My Spirit and will be drawn to them.
I want your words to be filled with emotion, with exclamation points! Your life should be one big exclamation point! The world around you should be different because you are in it. It will be forced to take sides for or against Me—hot or cold. Hail Him as a messiah or nail Him to a cross. God did not mean for man to carve out some safe middle ground, some safe zone between good and evil. There is a war going on in the earth, but so many shut their eyes to the war and go about their daily lives as though the war does not exist and all is well.
Be a man of action and passion. Passionately attack today. Be a life giver, a mover and a shaker. I was. Be like Me. Be an illuminator, not a caretaker.
Well-meaning loved ones
At this time, the doctor said that the black mass had shrunk enough that he believed that I don’t need to have a constant IV anymore, and that I could take oral antibiotics at home and come in two or three times a week for more tests as they continue to assess my condition. That was great news, positive news.
All my children had received updates of my condition, and some were thinking that I was on death’s door. They wanted to know what plans I had made for my funeral, what song I wanted sung, what message I wanted given at my funeral. I know they said those things out of their love for me, but I was praying and doing all I could to keep believing, trusting, and having a positive outlook. The last thing I wanted to think about was my body all nicely laid out in a funeral home or scooped into an urn. There may come a time to think about such things, but that wasn’t the time.
Final results
Between doctor visits, CT scans, MRIs, blood tests, Echo scans, cameras inside my body, I continued praying and hearing from the Lord. I really didn’t want to miss this chance to move ahead. I knew God allowed this to help me get going, leave the past behind, and go for broke.
Tomorrow, May 20th, I go to the hospital to hear the results of the latest tests and CT scan. I believe that the tests will reveal that Jesus has healed me. He has given me so much peace of mind and heart through all this. But if the tests seem contrary to what I am trusting God for, then I’m ready to yell across the spirit realm at the devil and all his demons: “Hell no!!! I haven’t even begun to fight yet!!! Bring it on!!!”
Conclusion
I just returned from the hospital and meeting with the doctor. He sat us down to go over the latest finding and the doctors’ conclusions. He put up a CT scan of my gallbladder and liver taken on my first day in the hospital, and put that side by side with the CT scan taken last week.
The doctor said that a case like mine was extremely rare and that they couldn’t account for it. The doctor told us that whenever there is such a huge black mass and abscess in the gallbladder and liver as I had, it doesn’t heal as quickly as mine did, and underneath the mass is always cancer. But in my case, all traces of cancer disappeared, which just doesn’t happen. And then he gave his final diagnosis:
I AM 100% CANCER FREE!!! HALLELUJAH!!!
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