THAT AIN'T FAITH, BABY!

“You shouldn’t say that! It’s a bad confession!”

My friend was chiding me over mentioning the pain I was in with arthritis in my hips. He encouraged me to never acknowledge the pain was there, to never talk about it.

I started jogging seriously when I was about thirty and I learned to love it. I was never a very fast runner but there was something incredibly relaxing for me to be able to jog for 30 or 40 minutes toward the end of a busy day. Wherever I was in the world, I could usually find enough time and a place to run and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As I got into my mid-fifties, I started having difficulty with my right leg and hip. At first I thought I had somehow twisted or jarred my leg running on uneven ground. I stopped running for a few days and that didn’t help so I tried to run through the pain—and that didn’t work either. As a last resort (after all, I am a man), I went to the doctor. After examining me and taking some X-ray’s, the doctor looked at me, chuckled (which definitely did not improve my frame of mind), and said, “Dave, it’s called arthritis and a lot of us have it.” And that was it.

I couldn’t keep up the jogging so I switched to riding a bike. I rode for several years until I had to stop that as well because the circular motion of pedaling had become too painful. All during this time I hardly ever spoke of my arthritis. If someone asked me how I was doing, my response was always, “I’m OK!”

My physical condition continued to deteriorate. In 2006 I pretty much quit traveling for ministry as it was just too difficult to put up with the travel and the pain. Some days during this time it was all I could do to get out of bed, as the pain was intense and distracting.

I tried diligently never to complain about the pain, about the discomfort. I was committed to being a good soldier and if I had to finish out my life in pain, then that was what I would do! I was willing to just soldier on! I spent many, many hours talking to the Lord about this and studying Scriptures about healing!

In the summer of 2006 my wife and my longtime friend Bill Prather prevailed on me to go and see another doctor. So in September I went to see an orthopedic surgeon here in Plano. The doctor’s staff put me through the exam, checked my range of motion and did a thorough X-ray workup on me and then the doctor came in. I am not a small man. I am 6’3” and weigh about 185 (in my dreams), truthfully about 240, but next to the doctor I was not so big. The doctor stood about 6’5” and I’m sure weighed at least 280. He sat down across the room and looked at me quietly for a few seconds and then said, “I don’t know how you get around. I have never seen hips as bad as yours. Unless you have surgery soon, within two years or less you will be in a wheelchair!” He was very gentle with me, but very direct as he came out with the clincher, “You are in denial!”

I instantly became angry but I tried not to let the anger show on my face. For the next few minutes Carol and I tried to elicit as much information as we could from the doctor and his staff. We wanted to understand what the options were. But my mind raged, “He said I was in denial!”

As we drove home I tried my best not to let the anger boil over but inside I was seething. “He accused me of being in denial! Me—in denial!”

At home I sat down in my office and looked up to heaven as the anger boiled over: “So this is what I get! After all these years of loving and serving You, I’m going to end up…” and I caught myself in mid-sentence. I suddenly came to grips with the fact that I was in denial and that I was blaming God for my predicament.

Over the next few minutes I had what my southern friends call “a come to Jesus meeting.” I repented of my bad attitude, my denial and my blaming God for my arthritis. Not only did I apologize to the Lord but within a few days, I did the same with my family.

You see, my failure to acknowledge that I had a problem was holding back the answer. First and foremost, denial is lying. Let me make sure we all understand: denial is lying! Denial is saying that what is true and a fact is not the truth and is not a fact. God will not bless a lie. When we have a problem, it is not a “bad confession” to acknowledge the problem and then to affirm that, “I am trusting God for a full and complete resolution.” It is not a bad confession to say, “Yes, I have a need but my God is bigger than any need that I have and I know He is capable of healing that situation!” That is not a bad confession, that is faith!

When asked about your arthritis and the excruciating pain that shows on your face, “How are you? Are you OK?” and you repeatedly flippantly reply, “I’m fine, I’m OK,” fully knowing you are not…that is not a good confession, cause that ain’t faith, baby!