Everyone's an Expert...

Hummm… today is the first full day of Spring (as it officially began at 12:15 PM EDT yesterday) and it’s snowing outside!  Oh well… I guess you just can’t really depend on anything… except for the Word of God…

Point in fact… The first thing that I did once the doctors began to have an idea of what was happening with my wife back in 2009, was to pray and get into the Word. After committing everything, every step, every medical procedure, every medication, every examination, every doctor’s visit, every hospital visit, every medical report, everything that I would need to do for her, and every conversation that I might have with anyone be it family, friend or a complete stranger in a store, I continued to depend on the Word in order to fortify both of us for what looked like would be a long road ahead!

Once that first step was progressing along a steady path, I began to do all kinds of research in the scientific journals, on the National Alzheimer’s Association and other similar websites, with whatever published results of documented current test cases and studies around the world that I could find and even looked into homeopathic medicine.  After that I even spent hours reading through all the “natural” cures and information posted on the internet by a vast variety of individuals from doctors to the people who live off the grid and follow a back-to-nature course for their lives!

As it worked out, both of these two courses of action turned out for the good, as it seemed like everybody I ran into suddenly became an expert on Alzheimer’s!  I began to hear all kinds of so-called reasons and/or causes for the disease and then of a great myriad of “cures” to use on Piper.  

I was told that the cause was “in the water we drink,” or “it’s the mercury in her fillings” which is weird because she actually has very few fillings! Then there were those who said it happened because of our “lifestyle” or “our diet” or that “it’s in her genes” and the best one of all was that I was at fault! (?)

We were given suggestions to “drink this supplement,” or to add a certain substance to her water, or to eat this food and stop eating that food or to do this exercise so many times a day, and do this and don’t do that… Like I said, everyone thought they had a special insight into our needs!

I discovered very quickly that God and His Word were the only foundation that I needed to discern between the old wives’ tales, the false information and the bits of truth that might be scattered in-between!  The scientific research combined with the multiple in-depth conversations I had with the medical specialists we saw helped to dispel the mis-truths of the many so-called “cures” that some were “sure” would work for us.  I’ve often caught myself wondering where people came up with some of these ideas!

Lately though, I’ve been studying in my Bible within the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven, and the writer’s discussion and explanation of “FAITH.”  Over the last week or so I have not been able to move on from verse three which states: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (KJV)  

In speaking on this subject and Bible chapter, the well-known Pentecostal evangelist Smith Wigglesworth taught in a sermon back in December of 1941 and declared: “On any line or principle of your faith you must have something established in you to bring that forth.  And there is no establishment outside God’s Word for you.  Everything else is sand.  Everything else shall sunder (or break up!).  If you build on anything else but the Word of God – on imaginations, sentimentality, or any feelings, or any special joy, it will mean nothing without you have a foundation, and the foundation will have to be in the Word of God.” (“Smith Wigglesworth on Prayer, Power, and Miracles” compiled by Roberts Liardon, © 2005, pg 139)

Yesterday afternoon it hit me that the first few words in Hebrews 11:3 says it all and answers a lot of my questions when it states rather matter-of-factly that “Through faith we understand…”  Understand what? EVERYTHING!  The verse finishes by describing how God created or formed EVERYTHING we now see and know to be by His Word… So then, it makes sense to me that in order to correctly look at and understand the world and its ways that we have to look at it and understand it through FAITH in the truth of God’s Word!

No Faith = No Understanding!  Hummm… interesting concept… wouldn’t you agree!

Well, I’ve whet your appetite today and hopefully got your spiritual thinking going… so I’ll stop here for now but continue to dig into this revelation more in our next post.  So, think about it!  Just how do you look at and understand everything around you? (be honest now!)

Have a great rest of the week, we’ll enjoy our snowy spring day (although it looks like it stopped now and is supposed to be sunny for a few days), and keep thinking about… “How am I expecting to understand my world today?”