iCare

Hi, my name is Jason Binder. This is VIP access to my inner struggle with glioblastoma (GBM) and faith.

The questions I’ve wrestled with since my wife’s GBM diagnosis are: Do I trust God with her health?  Do I have faith in God for her survival?  Do I desire Tracy’s health more than God?  

I’m evaluating my faith through the lens of Moreland and Issers book entitled, “In Search of a Confident Faith: Overcoming Barriers to Trusting in God.  

I agree that faith is “Trusting what we have reason to believe is true.”  The authors break faith into multiple parts and subparts but at the highest level faith is: knowledge, an agreement, and a commitment.  I know that God exists based on how I see creation, the historicity of Christ, and the inspired word of the Bible.  What I’ve struggled with is my agreement that God will heal and my commitment to God’s goodness through all of this pain.

The authors describe agreement as three outcomes: 1-unbelief (no desire to believe), 2-doubt (desire to believe but anxious in action), and 3-lack of belief (desire to believe but just cannot).  I’m living in a lack of belief.  I believe God can heal Tracy and just not convinced he will.  Why?  Because of the knowledge I have of GBM. It kills people.  And I begin to conflate my agreement with my commitment that God is good if he does not heal Tracy.  God can choose to heal but if he does not is He still good?  If Tracy dies, the amount of pain my family and I will experience will be overwhelming and hard to see His goodness.

So where is my lacking and how can I make up for this because I know God is good.  I have a masters in theology from Dallas Seminary and can argue about His goodness in multiple ways.  I want to accept and commit to his goodness.  The authors dissect confidence that leads to faith in two ways;  “Confidence in” and “Confidence that”.  I have confidence in the doctors and staff at Wake Forest Baptist Cancer that they are doing their absolute best for us because they have invested time in listening to us and some have validated our faith and even shared their own faith.  This has increased our faith in the team.  I do not have confidence that God will heal Tracy.  So do I sit idle?  No, I’ve prayed so much until now I can only pray, “God, heal her.”  To bolster my prayers, I have an army of people who still 2.5 years later pray for her and us.  So when all I have is 3 words the body of Christ comes to my rescue and pleads for God to act.  Thus increasing my cumulative Confidence “That.”

This statement from the book helps me find peace and clarity about my faith during this extremely hard time when the authors say, “...The risk [of faith] is about stepping out day by day in service of the kingdom and in reliance on its King, often while being in the dark about where God is and how he is (or isn’t!) moving in one’s circumstances.”  The argument here is that I can still have TRUST, CONFIDENCE, and RELIANCE even when I cannot see God.  

So do I have faith?  Do I trust?  I believe so.  While my heart is broken and in pain I have not rejected what I know about God.  In writing these words above I can feel my soul moving into more agreement and see that my pain is the barrier to full commitment.  I’m blessed that Tracy is healthy and present and thriving when the knowledge of the data would suggest hopelessness as the only outcome.  

Is God good then?  Well she’s alive so He must be good, right?  We still experience trauma of GBM and surprisingly there is unexpected goodness for us.  For example, growth and maturity from our kids I never expected. Inspiration for others we still do not understand. Opportunities to share with you that were not present prior to cancer.  We have not missed worship gatherings, or small groups, or stopped praying, or removed reminders from the walls of our home or off our skin of God’s existence and promises.  

Maybe we have the greatest faith we can muster on our own in this season of life and the rest is held up by our community?  And maybe that’s faith enough…because my name is Jason and iCare.