Not Yet What We Want to Be: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#11)
[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]
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Not Yet What We Want to Be, Although Better Than We Were
March 3, 2023
This cancer journal isn’t always about cancer. Sometimes it’s simply about really, really, really important things that this cancer-fighter thinks about to help him keep his head above water and—as in this case—love people better.
For example, I wrote recently that “God’s goodness does not make everything around me better, but God’s goodness does make everything in me better—better than I would otherwise be.”
Since then, that “better than I would otherwise be” phrase has taken hold of me and brought to mind an old peace principle that I picked up along the way (from where or whom, I do not know). Here it is:
When I am about to criticize someone for not being all that he or she should be in Christ, I should consider carefully what he or she would otherwise be without Christ.
How we measure ourselves and others should include an awareness of what each of us once was, in contrast to what we now are. This awareness is that, while we may still be missing the bullseye of God’s standard, we are (by God’s goodness and grace) at least getting a good deal closer to the target than we once did.
Considering what a child of God was before Christ, and would still be without Christ, has a way of accenting the miracle of what he or she has already become in Christ—and will ultimately become when he or she sees Christ. A sprout of a plant may only be two inches high today. But two months ago, it was nothing but an ugly seed in the ground. And two months from now, it may be in full bloom.
So it is with us.
It was once popular for Christians to say, “Be patient with me. God isn’t finished with me yet.” All too often these sentiments felt a tad too flippant for my taste, especially when those wielding the words seemed casual and dismissive of their sin.
But the truth is that Philippians 1:6 does speak this way of those who genuinely love Christ: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” In other words, what God has started in our past, he will in fact finish when Jesus comes. And we would do well to train our eyes to see his progress in between.
I need to bear all this in mind when the people I know—including family, friends, church members, pastors, Christian public figures, Christians of a different color or culture or class or party, and not least of all, I myself—seem to blow it big time. Before we chide, cancel, or condemn, we should stop to view them through the growth-revealing lens that sees what God has already done in their lives, is currently doing, and promises to yet do.
No, I’m not saying we should be casual about holiness or indulgent about remaining in sin. I’m just saying that seeing and celebrating true spiritual growth (more than rebuking all stunted growth) is a really good way for us to abound in joyful encouragement and patient forbearance toward the people in our lives, including the person we see in the mirror every morning.
These are the thoughts Lord is teaching me from the Shorey cancer furnace, the workshop where at times God’s work in me seems only to have just begun.
* You can read all the posts in this series here.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 45 years, and has six grown children and 14 grandchildren. After over forty years of pastoral ministry, he recently retired from Risen Hope Church, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; The Communion Truce: How Holy Communion Addresses Our Unholy Conflicts; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; his award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.