Aurora Sinai Medical Center, where Dr. Patel performed my laser surgery (HoLEP).
“God is to problems what a hurricane is to a mosquito. No match.”- Max Lucado, You Were Made for This Moment
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place. . . . And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time like this?”- Esther 4:14 (NIV)
On October 11, 2012, I posted a blog — (God the) Father Knows Best — in which I marveled at God’s goodness and perfect timing in disallowing drastic intervention for a prostate issue. Because my health insurer at the time twice rejected my procedure of choice, my prostate remained intact, not compromised. God had something better in mind.
As a result, over the next 8+ years I supplemented my largely vegetarian diet with flax seed and a natural prostate health regimen. That action stayed the course until May 13, 2021. On that date urgent care diagnosed me with acute urinary retention. Since my prostate enlarged to the point where it cut off all flow from the bladder, a catheter was necessary. For the next 112 days.
And, in the middle of all this, a medical error and subsequent three-day hospital stay ultimately blessed me with a new urologist, Dr. Anand Patel. On September 2nd he performed successful laser surgery (HoLEP). Five days later his nurse removed the ninth and final catheter. Relief and deliverance! Hurricane versus mosquito.
In his latest book, You Were Made for This Moment, Max Lucado asks what he terms no small question. Rather, it’s the question: Does your view of God include a certain relief and a dramatic deliverance? The vast majority of people, Pastor Lucado observes, see no pending relief. Thus, their life, in a nutshell, resembles a Shakespearean tragedy. They believe our broken world cannot be fixed. And no one can do anything about it.
Max goes on to describe this hopeless feeling:
“The struggles of life have pilfered the life out of your life, and you don’t know where to turn. You’ve been disappointed so many times. And you are so very, very tired. . . .
It stinks, I know. But I urge you . . . don’t give in to despair. The anaconda of hopelessness will squeeze the life out of you. You can’t give up. There is too much at stake.”
However, like Mordecai’s message to Esther, relief is coming. Like a hurricane to a mosquito, problems present no match for God. God’s always a turn of the page from a turn-on-a-dime turnaround. In other words, He’s the God of grand reversals. So, Pastor Lucado encourages, set your eyes on the author of your salvation. Most significantly, no one owns the right to say that God doesn’t have a reversal in your future. Everyone and everything exists under the sovereign hand of God. His influence far exceeds their reach.
Just like Esther, Max stresses, God placed you here in this moment on purpose for a purpose. Certainly, you didn’t request this struggle. You ache to get past it. Because you wonder how much longer you can hold up.
God, the hurricane, is in this. And your response my bless more people than you could imagine. God promises relief and deliverance. Hence, you need not question whether or not God will prevail. Instead, the question is, Will you be part of the team?
In conclusion, Max offers these words of hope:
“Each of our lives intersects with opportunities in which we can come alongside the work of God. We won’t speak to a Persian king. Very few will lead a movement of liberty. But heaven will offer each one of us, without exception, the privilege of participating in holy work.”
