When I received a cancer diagnosis a certain stunned feeling came over me as I tried to absorb the information. I can sum up how I felt in one word: concussed. Any sense of vulnerability I ever had was magnified. All those buried insecurities seemed to explode. This diagnosis shattered the sense I had of myself as a strong and vibrant person.

When first diagnosed with cancer or threatened with a fatal disease, a whole host of emotional issues come crashing down on your brain. When the test says: “You have all these tumors…or life-threatening virus,” all those buried insecurities seem to explode. Any sense of vulnerability is magnified.

How do we to summon the mental strength and toughness to handle our condition, whether cancer or a pandemic or any other of life’s major setbacks? This book seeks to assist you to regain your mental strength and physical health.

Applying these verses in Proverbs helped me immensely.

Proverbs 4:20-22: (NKJV)
My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
For they are life to those who find them, And health [medicine] to all their flesh.

You could call these verses a promise of God or just a plain statement of fact. Proverbs 4 states that focusing relentlessly on God’s words will bring you life and health. First, find God’s promises that speak to you and pertain to your situation. Then pay attention to them; keep them in the forefront of your thinking.

When it says: “give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart,” it suggests a process; there may be some time and effort involved.

Of course, when we find ourselves in a traumatic situation at one of the extremities of life, we would like to be delivered as soon as possible. Complete healing or deliverance right now would be nice! What if that doesn’t happen immediately?  Well, that’s where my book comes in handy. As much as we would like for things to happen instantaneously, there may be some patience, persistence, and waiting involved in receiving healing. My health issues involved months of treatments and years of follow up visits to the doctor.  So I developed a step-by-step system to facilitate and sustain my positive believing attitude and my healing.

When the timing of God’s help is not to your satisfaction or your expectations you may feel disappointed and even angst. If God’s deliverance hasn’t come to pass in your life yet, consider Psalm 31:15: “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies.” My times are in God’s hands—don’t fret, let go and let God.

Psalm 70:4 and 5:
Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation [deliverance] say continually, Let God be magnified.
But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.

The psalmist calls on God to “make haste” and “make no tarrying” suggesting he wants God to hurry up and take care of his problem. But in the meantime what was he going to do?  Verse 4 is rather clear: rejoice and be glad.

Here are two reasons to keep rejoicing and giving thanks regardless of your situation: First, you won’t be as miserable regardless of what happens. Secondly, you don’t know when God will rescue you out of your situation. In the book, I look at a few accounts of deliverance in the Bible. Whether it was Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 20) or David or Paul, while going through their trials, they had certainty of God moving in their favor. But God’s methods and timing were often beyond their purview. We don’t dictate to God the means and timetable unless we have specific guidance. But here in Psalm 70:4, we do have very specific guidance from His Word on what our frame of mind should be in the meantime.

While I can’t speak for others, “rejoicing in tribulation” is a concept I have been slow to grasp and to employ. Yet as I took time to ponder these verses in this book and how they related to me, I felt so connected to my Heavenly Father and His goodness.

(Written by David Bergey  His book is available on Amazon at the link below.)

100 Scriptures to Help you Recover your Health

by David D. Bergey