(Thanks to Rae for the heads-up.)
Tim Challies has just posted that “John Piper has just announced to the members of Bethlehem Baptist Church that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.” Along with Tim, I ask that you would keep Dr. Piper in prayer; that he would be healed, of course, but moreso that Jesus would be even more wonderful to him through this experience.
In John’s letter to his church (which Tim has posted in its entirety), he wrote the following:
This news has, of course, been good for me. The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness. The news of cancer has a wonderfully blasting effect on both. I thank God for that. The times with Christ in these days have been unusually sweet.
[...]
God has designed this trial for my good and for your good. You can see this in 2 Corinthians 1:9, "Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." And in 2 Corinthians 1:4-6, "He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God . . . If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation."
Oh, that I could have the same attitude in a time such as this!
