In this vulnerable and faith-filled episode of Curious for Christ, I sit down again with Gordon Ferguson—author, teacher, and spiritual leader with over 50 years in ministry. You may remember him from our most listened-to episode on God’s view of women.
This time, we explore his most personal book: God and Cancer. It’s a raw and honest conversation about mortality—not to stir fear, but to awaken faith, clarity, and purpose.
We discuss:
• Why we avoid death—and why we must face it
• How illness and aging sharpen spiritual focus
• The practical wisdom of preparing for our departure
• God’s power over death—and what it means for life now
• Gordon’s transformation through cancer and aging
• Stories from real estate and lessons from The Obstacle Is the Way
Key Quotes:
“God didn’t become a servant when He became a man. He became a man because He is a servant.”
“I’ve lost my faith in coincidences. God is always at work.”
Call to Action – from Christine Caine:
• God, what’s on Your heart today?
• How do You want me to participate in your plans today?
• What need do You want to meet through me?
Scriptures to Reflect On:
• John 10:10 – Life to the full
• Romans 8:28 – All things for good
• 2 Timothy 1:10 – Christ destroyed death
Books Mentioned:
God and Cancer & The Bible and Women by G. Ferguson, An Aging Grace by Jeanie Shaw and Friends, The Obstacle Is the Way by R. Holiday
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome back to Curious forChrist.
Today's episode is unlike anyother topic we've talked about.
It's about our own mortality, wedon't like to talk about death
in our culture.
We avoid it.
We cover it up.
We distract ourselves withyouth, beauty and success.
(00:22):
Maybe you're young and thistopic feels distant or even
irrelevant, but the Biblereminds us in Ecclesiastes seven
verse two.
It is better to go to a house ofmourning than to go to a house
of feasting for death is thedestiny of everyone.
The living should take this toheart.
There is wisdom in reflecting onour own mortality.
(00:46):
In fact, we were created to liveforever with God.
One Corinthians 15, verse 26,caused death our greatest enemy,
the last enemy to be destroyedis death.
And yet, through Christ, Godtransformed that very enemy into
the doorway to life.
(01:06):
Second Timothy one verse 10says, our savior, Christ Jesus
has destroyed death and hasbrought life and immortality to
light through the gospel.
Let me share a personal story.
I once worked with Ryan Serhant,the celebrity real estate broker
you may know, from MillionDollar Listing one of New York's
(01:27):
top brokers.
A client of mine needed to sella condo on the Upper East Side
and through Ryan and his team.
We got it done.
Sometime later I saw a video ofhim on social media reading a
question about death.
He gave a little grin and said,I will never die, and it stuck
with me because that responsethough confident and even
(01:51):
inspiring on a surface.
We flex a philosophy that simplydoesn't leave room for
mortality, let alone forspiritual meaning in it.
But what if that's exactly wherewe begin to see clearly, as
Jesus said in Luke nine, verse24, whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoeverloses their life for me will
(02:13):
save it.
Ryan Holiday, another RyanNumber one, New York Times
bestselling author of TheObstacle is The Way Writes that.
Oftentimes the obstacle is theway as the title suggests.
In other words, what seems tostand in our way, such as aging,
for instance, or death as theultimate obstacle or our own
(02:36):
mortality might actually be thepath forward.
So let's take a closer look atwhat these realities can reveal
to us about God, life, purpose,and eternity with today's
conversation, because that'sexactly what Gordon Ferguson's
story illustrates sobeautifully.
His experience with cancer andfacing the brink of eternity
(02:59):
became a lens through which hecould see more clearly.
God.
Himself and his true purpose.
So today I'm honored to welcomeonce again my friend and teacher
Gordon Ferguson.
His voice of wisdom andvulnerability touched so many
hearts in our most Listened toepisode to date, episode 26,
which is about struggling totrust God and gender roles where
(03:22):
we discuss his most old book,God and Women.
How did I miss so much?
But today we are going toexplore something different.
We are going to talk aboutGordon's least sold book which
is titled My Rollercoaster Ridewith God and Cancer, than
sitting with him on the brink ofeternity.
A little bit about Gordon.
(03:42):
He's a graduate of NorthwesternState University and the Harding
School of Theology.
With more than 50 years ofministry experience, he has
served as an evangelist.
Elder and teacher authored 21books and produced numerous
teaching series in audio andvideo.
Gordon and his wife Theresa livein McKinney, Texas.
(04:02):
And for more information abouthis work, you can visit his
website at www dot.
Gordon ferguson.org.
And now without further ado,let's step into this powerful
conversation.
Welcome to Curious For Christ.
Do you ever find yourself lying,awake at night, wondering about
(04:26):
God's plan for your life?
Maybe you wake up with bigdreams, but feel unsure where to
start or what your next stepshould be.
If you're curious aboutexploring your faith and finding
purpose, then you've come to theright place.
Hi, I'm Alexandra.
I too felt lost, unsure of thedirection my life was leaking.
(04:46):
I yearned or understand mypurpose and have someone guide
me.
But I kept telling myself I wastoo busy.
The timing wasn't right, and mylack of clarity prevented me
from being consistent until Ifound Christ.
He brought peace into my lifeand revealed the way to find
purpose by anchoring myself.
(05:07):
In him.
In this podcast, we'll journeytogether exploring the Bible to
gain a deeper understanding ofhim and cultivate your own
personal relationship withChrist.
So open up your Bible, put inthose earbuds and listen up
because God is speaking to you.
He's making everything new andyou don't wanna miss it.
(05:28):
Let's get started.
Good morning, Gordon, and thankyou again for being here with me
today.
Thank you for having me.
It's always good to see you andbe with you.
And likewise.
(05:48):
And so just for the records, ourlisteners enjoyed so much our
previous conversation about Godand women, it's the top episode
of my entire podcast.
And so I'm excited about today'sconversation and we are gonna be
talking about another book and areally different topic, always
about God, but very differentright?
Nonetheless.
(06:09):
And for those who haven't readyour book yet, can you just
start by giving us a littlecontext?
What inspired you to ride Godand Cancer?
My rollercoaster ride with himon the brink of eternity well
having cancer.
And so the timing of this isvery interesting.
I was diagnosed January thefifth 2022.
(06:34):
So three years ago, plus some.
And so you go through all thesetests, they're trying to see if
it's metastasized and spread andall of that.
And so it started off actuallypretty good.
I wasn't that.
Concerned or I wasn't hit asmuch emotionally as I thought I
might be.
Most people are so fearful ofhearing the big C word, yeah.
(06:56):
And yet the stats say that halfof us are gonna get cancer, and
that's going to be an increasingstatistic.
And yet, at the same time,they're discovering ways to
treat it much better.
And so I have lists of peoplethat I pray for who have cancer.
The large majority are dealingwith it and are not terminal.
(07:18):
And so I think the improvementshave been pretty amazing.
And so the big C word should notbe quite as scary to us as it
has been in the past.
So when I was diagnosed, I was79 years old.
I'm 82 now, but I was 79 at thetime.
And so my comment to my surgeonwas we all have a shelf life and
(07:41):
I'm already 79.
And her comment was that's true,but you're in very good health
otherwise, and so we need to getthis treated.
And she was fairly hopeful thatit could be put in remission.
And so we went from there.
That night after I heard thediagnosis, I slept like a baby.
My problem wasn't emotionallybeing that disturbed about it.
(08:06):
But then the disturbance camefrom a friend of mine insisting
he had cancer and been treatedsuccessfully, and he insisted
that I move to another treatmentcenter.
So that was kinda hard to dealwith because I was already
fairly well set with the systemI was in, but I had to change.
(08:27):
And so that was the bigger item.
And so in the early part of thebook, I tell all about that
switch and it has some veryfunny parts to it.
Looking back on it, it actuallyis quite hilarious, but I ran
into so many things that werequote, coincidental and I don't
believe in coincidences.
In fact, I wrote an article onetime on my website called I Have
(08:51):
Lost My Faith, and then I put inparentheses in coincidences.
Because I believe that God'salways at work.
Yeah.
And he works in mysterious waysand he always seems to enjoy
putting me in some.
Weird situations.
I think God has a sense of humorand he likes to trick me and
(09:13):
play tricks on me.
And we have a, an interestingrelationship.
So the real challenge for me atfirst was just doing the switch.
I'm glad I did.
I went to a better system.
One of the top cancer treatmentcenters in the Dallas area is
University of TexasSouthwestern.
(09:33):
I.
I went to that treatment center.
I got a wonderful radiologist, afairly young Chinese woman,
raised in Boston, went to an IvyLeague undergraduate school
trained at Harvard MedicalSchool.
So she was a great oncologist.
And so God set me up with all ofthat, and I tell all about the
(09:55):
details leading to that, whichare.
Off the chart.
Amazing to me looking back.
And so one of the points in thefirst, maybe third of the book
as I describe all of this isdescribing that you see God in
different ways, and I felt likeI saw him in many ways, and it's
(10:16):
important.
To see him, I believe that Godcan be seen and wants to be
seen.
And so there are lessons likethat stand out, I think, in the
early part.
But I went after I finally goteverything lined up for the
treatment, I startedchemotherapy, six big pills
every day.
Three in the morning, three atnight, and then radiation five
(10:37):
days a week.
And so that was the start of it,and it was rather amazing.
I had no side effects for threeweeks.
I did get a blister on my foot,and they said that was normal
with the chemo.
But other than that, I was stillout doing my three to five mile
walks every day or nearly everyday, and feeling fine, feeling
(10:57):
no side effects at all.
Then on Easter Sunday, whichthat year was yesterday's date,
the 17th on that day we went tochurch, we came home, had my son
and his family over for lunch,and then I think we were
watching the Master's golf matchand all of a sudden my body
(11:21):
exploded.
All the fluid in my body cameout from every place it could
come out.
Wow.
And it was a shock and it justdepleted me of all fluids in my
body.
I went to the doctor on maybeTuesday after just being totally
out of it since Sunday.
And so she put me on a, an IV toget some fluids back in my body.
(11:46):
I went back home.
And it still was the same thing.
Nothing slowed down.
And so I was totally out of it,just in bed sleeping a lot of
the time.
Just really almost outta mysenses.
Went back to the same nursepractitioner on Friday and she
said she finally asked the rightquestion.
(12:08):
We males have a hard time goingto hospitals or going to doctors
even, at least a lot of us do.
And so she finally asked theright question.
She said, if you go home, do youthink you will be okay?
And I thought about that for aminute and I said, no, if I go
home, I think I will die.
(12:29):
And she said, that's what thechemotherapy doctor and I both
think.
So go check yourself in to thehospital.
And that led to a 23 day stay inthe hospital.
And during much of that time,that's why I called the ti or
put in the title on the brink ofeternity because I didn't know
if I'd live or die.
(12:49):
Yeah.
My family didn't know if I wouldlive or die.
I looked pretty dead.
Wow.
At one point.
But anyway, it was through thatperiod of time that I had so
many insights and so manyconversations with God and so
much happened.
I wouldn't take anything for theexperience.
Spiritually now.
(13:10):
Physically.
That's, that was a differentmatter.
It was a very tough time andthere were a lot of
complications that led to 23days.
But at any rate, spiritually itwas very good for me.
I love how you share that.
You saw God and everything, andI think that's really crucial to
handle the ups and downs oflife, or the uncertainty is to
(13:31):
always seek his face right.
And to, and then the insightthat you gained.
When you were physically at yourlowest is incredible.
One of the themes that reallystood out is living with
eternity in mind.
And that's something thatprobably during those 23 days,
you gained a differentperspective on what did that
perspective shape the way younavigated your cancer diagnosis
(13:54):
and treatment.
And then.
And then after being healed, youare cancer free as of to, three
years ago.
So how does that shape the wayyou live your life today?
I think it shapes it more nowthan ever to realize that we are
all terminal.
We all have a shelf life.
The Bible talks about, living tobe 70 by reasonable strength,
(14:18):
80.
That's Psalm 90, the oldestpsalm in the Bible.
And from that I've always known,that I will hopefully get old
and will die.
That's inevitable.
And so even from a youngchildhood, people would tell me,
the old guys would say, son,it's gonna go by a lot faster
(14:40):
than you think.
And I actually believed them.
Because they're all saying thesame thing.
And the Bible says over and overthat life is like a shadow and
it goes by so quickly.
But it goes by a lot morequickly than you think it will.
And so when I got to the pointthat I was facing death and
thinking I might well die, I.
(15:00):
Of course, then you evaluateeverything and you think, what
would I have done differently?
What would I advise other peopleto do, et cetera.
But I live every day.
My wife and I both with theconcept of we have today.
That's all anyone has.
Yeah.
No one's guaranteed lifetomorrow, but we have it today.
(15:22):
And so we try to live each dayto the full.
With God in mind and looking forGod's purposes in our life,
praying that he will open theright doors, shut the wrong
doors, just really basicallylead us, yeah.
By his spirit and into spendingtime in a way that would be
useful to him and to otherpeople.
(15:43):
And the assurance that he willlead us home and we are being
carried.
I really love that.
And then also the wisdom thatcomes from numbering our days so
that we make the best of ittoday.
What is certain is what we havetoday and how can we make the
best of it?
It is definitely wise to dothat.
I wanted to talk about anothersubject, another theme that you
(16:07):
mentioned in the book.
It's the role of servanthood.
You, it's an, it's anotherpowerful theme.
How did that call to serveremain steady or even deepen
while you were going throughsuch a personal battle?
Servanthood is a huge issue.
I have been a leader in churchesfor over half century, and I
(16:31):
have written two books,co-authored one, and wrote
another on my own about churchleadership because Jesus said in
Matthew chapter 20 that thegreatest of all is the servant
of all.
And he said that in the midst ofdealing with apostles who were
vying for position.
Who gets to sit on the left andwho gets to sit on the right.
(16:53):
And so they were, had a veryworldly view of leadership as
most do.
And yet Jesus said the realleader is the one who is a
servant of all.
And so I know that is true, butwhat actually led to the theme,
I think developing the way itdid with me in the hospital.
Is that I have I was raised in avery legalistic church setting.
(17:17):
I was trained in a fairlylegalistic ministry setting, and
so I've always struggled with myview of God.
There are certain parts of theBible, especially the Old
Testament, that seemed topresent God as being pretty
harsh and pretty judgmental.
And so I'm one of these withwhat I call an accused type
(17:41):
conscience.
And I can feel guilty when Ishouldn't.
There are other people thatdon't feel guilty when they
should, but that's another typeof personality.
But yeah.
At any rate, I've struggled alot with my view of God and
worked on it much of my life,and it came from overcoming my
past.
It came from trying to overcomesome of the early experiences
(18:04):
with my father, who was veryharsh when I was young.
All of that improved with time.
He improved tremendously withtime, and by the time he died he
and I had a very close emotionalrelationship, but I had a lot to
overcome.
And for some reason in one ofthose nights when I couldn't
sleep or I was in and out of.
(18:25):
Sleep and whatever else that wasgoing on.
I don't know, hallucinations orwhatever.
But there was a saying that afriend of mine.
Made.
Many years ago, I had a friendwe both taught in similar
ministry training schools, andhe and I were good friends and
he is written a lot of books,very good books, everything from
(18:48):
commentaries and deep subjectstuff, down to devotional books
that are extremely good.
His name is Jim McGuigan.
I'm not sure if Jim's stillalive or not.
He's somewhat older than me.
Not a lot.
Years ago, Jim said this, hesaid, God did not become a
(19:08):
servant when he became a humanin the person of Jesus.
God became a servant.
I.
God became, he became a human,became a man.
He became a human because he wasa servant.
That's who God is.
A servant.
And I thought about Matthew 20,the greatest leader will always
be the one that's a servant orslave of all.
(19:30):
And so if the greatest is thegreatest servant, it has to be
God, because God is the greatestbeing conceivable and beyond
conception.
And so it hit me in the middleof the night that God is a
servant.
I started thinking, okay, theBible says that God is the Lord
of Lord and the king of kings,but he's also the servant of
(19:55):
servants.
And so then I began to see Godin a much different light, in a
better light, and even thethings that I couldn't
understand or didn't like in theBible about God.
I said to myself, you've got tofigure out a better way of
(20:15):
looking at that.
There's something you're missinghere because God is at heart the
greatest servant it couldpossibly be.
And then I look at my own life.
I'm 82, my wife is 81.
We recently celebrated 60 yearsof marriage.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
(20:35):
But God has blessed us so much.
He has served us so much.
Yeah.
That should have been obvious tome that he's a servant.
And yet other people aren'tblessed as much as we are, and
they have to find ways toevaluate their experiences and
the Bible in light of the factthat God is the greatest servant
(20:57):
possible.
Yeah.
The, just the way that he guidesus to him, who are we, that he
would walk with us through allof it.
That is beautiful.
And then you bring also a uniqueperspective on salvation at some
point, especially inrelationship to servanthood and
grace.
Can you unpack that a bit forour listeners, especially that
(21:18):
notion of.
Grace versus work, how do yousee grace and obedience working
together?
What are your conclusions onthat?
To begin with, God is not justafter our obedience.
Obedience has a pur purpose, andthat is to help us develop into
(21:41):
who we are and to be like him.
So with little children, youtell them exactly what to do,
otherwise they run off into thestreet.
But in time, what you aretraining them to do is become
mature adults that are goodpeople and that do good things.
(22:02):
But it's not that, that youfocus on the doing of it.
It's that you focus on the heartchanging.
So that is who you become.
And so I look at God's grace asa motivation to help me become
more like him.
(22:23):
And so gratitude is huge.
If you look in Romans one wherehe describes the gentile world,
who had really gone off track.
He begins by talking about theylost their gratitude.
And I have helped people thatdealt with physical or chemical
recovery groups I've worked withguys that taught those groups
(22:48):
and all of them have said thesame thing.
You can tell when an addict isgoing to get back on their drug
of choice.
By when they cease to bethankful.
When they lose their gratitude,then they're wide open to Satan
getting them right back wherethey were before.
So gratitude just has so much todo with our response to God.
(23:12):
I.
And to realize that he's notjust some master cracking the
whip and saying, do this or dothat.
That's not his purpose.
His purpose is to help ourhearts change so that our whole
life is not so much about whatwe do, but who we are and who we
are is what the actions grow outof.
(23:37):
They become natural or much morenatural to us.
Because that's who we are, so wedo it.
Yeah.
And on the whole servanthoodthing, as I point out in the
book, I happen to live with awoman who has a gift of
servanthood that I have neverseen surpassed, maybe equaled,
(23:59):
but never surpassed.
And she did, she just serves.
It's natural.
She can't help it, she just doesit.
It's who she is.
And so I try to imitate herbecause she's a lot better at it
than I am.
That's great.
Yes.
That's that's fantastic.
Thank you.
And it's true.
Gratitude keeps us open to beingin touch with God's grace.
(24:20):
And once we lose that, then wego with our own ways.
We go back to what we, what wewant instead of being in touch
with.
What is doing and how he worksin our lives, so thank you.
So you've said also that weoften avoid talking about cancer
(24:41):
and death, and it's not an easytopic.
It's not a topic that we like totalk about in today's society.
We actually go at length toreally avoid it.
We want to look good and youngand feel young and avoid that
topic at all costs.
Why do you think that is beyondthe obvious of, vanity or
(25:02):
whatever that reason may be andhow can we as believers find
courage to face those realitieswith honesty, with faith, with
humility, perhaps also, I.
Disease and suffering isdifficult.
Yeah.
No one would volunteer it.
In fact, one of the things thatI used to pray in the hospital
(25:22):
is God, I'm not sure which sideI will wake up on eternity or
back in the hospital herebecause I felt like I was 50 50
on whether I lived or died.
But I said, Lord I want to live.
Especially for the sake of myfamily.
On the other hand, if I getthrough this, the scary part is
(25:44):
I'll have to do something likethis again in order to die,
because we're all going to die.
So I had to count that cost andrealize that.
But I think the I think theaging part is hard.
I've always had trouble withaging all of my life.
My 40th birthday, I stillremember That was like, wow,
(26:07):
that's old.
I did pretty good with 50 and60, oddly enough, because I was
still in really good health andtraveling all over the world and
speaking and teaching andwriting books and all of that.
70, on the other hand, that wasa hard one.
80 wasn't as hard because Ithought, okay.
Talks in Psalm 90 about livingto be 70 and by reasonable
(26:31):
strength, 80.
And so I started making a jokethat from this point forward I'm
playing on house money.
Not that I always haven't been,it's always been God's blessing
of life.
But at any rate I did okay onthat birthday, but aging's been
hard.
But on the other hand, death isthe most scary thought that most
(26:54):
of us have.
And there is a reason for that.
Paul said in one Corinthians 15that death is the last enemy.
It is an enemy.
And you can look at when peoplein the Bible died, like Stephen
or Jesus.
Which we're celebrating thattime of the year now.
(27:14):
Yeah.
But you look at that or John theBaptist, if you watch the
series, the Chosen, which Ihighly recommend john the
Baptist, when he's beheaded,they don't show the actual
beheading, he dies.
And that led to grief among.
Disciples among Christians.
So there's always going to be agrief connected with death for
(27:38):
those of us that are left.
But if we're viewing itcorrectly then those who die, if
they're right with God, thenthey're much better off.
And so Paul, who had actuallyseen the other side.
He said he didn't know if he wasin the body or out of it.
But he was caught up to thethird heaven and into paradise.
(28:01):
And saw things he couldn'trepeat.
And I think that's SecondCorinthians chapter 12.
And so in Philippians one, hesays it's far better to die and
be with Christ.
But he said, for your sake, I'drather stay so that I can serve
and help you.
So we have to get past thefears.
(28:21):
And to realize that if we'reright with God to die is gain,
as Paul said.
And it takes away a lot of thefear.
But the thing that's shocking tome, you mentioned the podcast
that we did before, was verywell received, very grateful,
and glad to hear that.
(28:42):
So the book that I wrote on theBible in Women has sold very
well.
It's an Amazon book available onAmazon.
And it is still being sold afterall of this time.
And yet, on the other hand, thenext book that I wrote was the
One on Cancer.
And it's out of 21 books thatI've written, two of which were
(29:05):
co-authored, but 21 books.
This book on cancer has sold theleast of any book I've ever
written by.
Far.
Wow.
People just don't want to talkabout it.
And yet those that have cancer,we all know we, we have friends
or relatives with cancer.
Every last one of us.
(29:27):
We may have it, we may have hadit, but it's so prevalent.
That I wanted to talk withpeople that had dealt with
cancer, so I'd know what toexpect.
Tell me what that radiationtreatment was like.
Tell me this, tell me how youfelt.
Because our emotions, you got,you have two levels of emotion.
(29:48):
One is the conscious and one isthe subconscious.
Consciously, most of the time Ijust lived life when I was
diagnosed and being treated.
It didn't seem to interrupt mydaily life much, and I didn't
think about it that much, butevery now and then, something
would trigger it and I wouldhave a lot of emotion well up.
(30:11):
And so we kinda live on twolevels emotionally.
But we need to recognize thatand we need to be able to talk
with people that have dealt withit or read books.
The people that I've talked tothat read the book.
With, and they've had cancer.
They said it was very helpful.
Just to know that all of theemotional up and down and
(30:33):
weirdness stuff that's happeningis not abnormal.
That's just the human psyche andthe way that we're built.
But it helps to have someone totalk to.
Yeah.
And then when we come down tothe inevitable event of death, I
actually, in the book.
The first third of it was aboutthe experience, and then I have
(30:55):
20 chapters of insights that Igained during that hospital
stay, basically.
So 20 different chapters, manyof which tie into the concept or
the theme of servanthood.
But I have some other thingsthat are also very important
that aren't exactly tied to thattheme.
(31:16):
One of them is getting yourhouse in order.
And I started thinking, wow, ifI die, I have four file
cabinets.
More than that I have fourdrawers in a big file cabinet
plus a smaller file cabinet fullof stuff.
And if my family has to gothrough all of that to decide
(31:37):
what's expendable and importantthat I hate to leave with them
with that.
And so I recognized my house wasnot in order.
And after I got through this Iwent through the file cabinets,
took a number of boxes ofmaterial to a professional
shredder and had it shredded.
(32:00):
I had a friend, I got electronicstuff everywhere.
I'm a techie guy and I flew aguy in, I paid for his plane
flight in and back.
He stayed with me, but I had himhelp me for about three days
deal with all of my electronicstuff so that my family would
not have to go through that andfigure out what was important
(32:22):
and what wasn't.
And so I'm trying to keep myhouse in order more because I've
seen so many families that werejust had so many problems.
Because their loved one who diedwasn't prepared.
His house wasn't an oil.
I've been to several at my age.
I happen to attend a lot ofmemorial services, at least
(32:45):
lately.
One of them died at a, to me, afairly young age.
He was in his maybe mid sixtiesor early sixties.
But his daughter, his growndaughter, got up and did her own
little short sermon.
She said when my dad died, hehad his business in order.
(33:05):
We knew exactly what to do.
Everything was legally writtenout.
We did not have to make onedifficult decision, and she said
it was such a hard time when hepassed because it was sudden and
unexpected.
She said we didn't have tofigure anything out.
He had it all outlined.
(33:26):
We knew exactly what to do.
And she says that was such arelief and a comfort, right?
And she said, you need to dothat for your family.
And so I have a chapter talkingabout that.
And my wife and I have had awill for many years.
We've redone it probably four orfive times as circumstances have
(33:48):
changed.
I have instructions about mymemorial service.
I have instructions about myfinancial issues, who to
contact, phone numbers, who tocall first when I die.
All of that's written out.
All of that's been written outfor a long time.
So my house was already inbetter order than most, but I've
(34:08):
tried to get people to writewills who won't do it.
And yet we're all going to die.
Yeah.
And so if there's anything Iwould love to do, it would be to
convince people that the idea ofaging in death as a part of the
human process, and you need toaccept it as a normal thing,
even though it's scary and youneed to prepare.
(34:32):
So I think it's a big lesson.
Yes.
And it is part of living witheternity in mind as well, is
what we wanna leave with ourfamily and our loved one and and
that with God we can do allthings.
We can face that enemy and wecan take actions today to
alleviate our family, our lovedones, so that they can.
(34:53):
Grieve in peace.
And continue with faith.
By the way let me throw one morething in.
I know that you have interviewedJeannie Shaw for a podcast.
Yes.
She's a very dear friend ofmine.
But about 10 years ago, yes shegot the idea of putting a book
together called An Aging Grace.
Yes, and she had differentwriters for it, and they talked
(35:17):
about the whole process of agingand various things about it.
Everything from financial issuesto sexual issues to.
She covered the gamut prettywell.
It is a great book that she puttogether.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I wrote a chapter aboutaging and then I wrote the final
chapter about the inevitabilityof death.
(35:40):
And I think I did it in a verypositive way.
And so that's a good book tohelp people because there are
many things about aging that areunexpected.
And unwanted.
But we have to accept all of us.
Hard go through it.
Yes.
I will put that book in the shownote as well, the reference so
(36:02):
that it's a great one.
And I believe that you wrotethose articles before your
cancer diagnosis.
Oh, yeah.
That was 10 years ago.
So 10 years ago.
Yeah.
It was actually, did you havesaid something differently
perhaps?
No, I've reread them.
I thought they were pretty good.
Oh, nice.
But I feel like Jeanie preparedme Oh yeah.
(36:23):
To think about such thingbefore.
Yeah.
Since I was one of the olderwriters in the book.
I think it was helpful to me.
I think God designed that and Icalled Jeannie up after I got
the email about the assignmentsand said, Jeannie, you gave me
the chapter on aging and death,the two hardest things for me.
(36:44):
And she just laughed.
And she says that's not reallythe intent, Gordon.
It has a different title inthat.
Each of the chapters, but I saidit gets down to that and it did,
but I tried to do it in apositive way.
As I believe God would have uslook at it.
Absolutely.
So we are con concluding here,our interview.
(37:05):
Is there one final word ofencouragement that you'd like to
share with our listeners beforewe.
Number one, get on Amazon andlook up the title of that book
and buy it.
You can get it on the Kindleversion or in the paperback
version.
And I would love to see the bookread more because there are
many.
(37:25):
Principles that I cover in those20 chapters, the last two thirds
of the book, there are manyprinciples I cover as well as
the whole ordeal of how do youjust even face cancer when
you're diagnosed.
But the chapters have some greatcontent in them.
I feel like it's one of the bestbooks I've ever written, and yet
(37:47):
it's the least sold.
As I said, by far of any of the21 books that I've written, so I
had no idea it would be sodifficult to get people to read
it, but it gives you many lifelessons, not, it's not all about
death and dying, trust me.
(38:08):
It's about living and how tolive and how to view God, and
how to view yourself, and how toview you and God in
relationship.
And what a personal relationshipwith God is all about.
How can we see God?
How can we communicate with God?
It has so many spiritual lessonsin it, aside from the issue of
(38:29):
disease and death.
And so I would definitelyencourage people to buy it and
read it.
Everyone that's contacted meafter reading it was really
happy that they read it.
For sure.
And we have the spirit of power,not of timidity.
We can face and go there withGod and see what renewed
relationship we can have withhim.
(38:50):
A deeper one for sure.
Thank you so much, Gordon.
Your wisdom, your vulnerability,your eternal perspective are
such a gift to us.
I thank you so much again.
And I will put all the links inthe show notes for the books and
Jeannie Shaw's book as well.
And I wish you the best and Iwish you good health for a long
time.
(39:11):
Thank you very much, Alexander.
It's great being back on yourpodcast.
You're doing a great work.
Keep it up.
Thank you.
Your spirit communicatesencouragement.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Hmm.
Before we wrap up, I want toacknowledge this was a bit of a
rollercoaster.
We covered a lot of deep,meaningful ground and it stirred
(39:34):
me emotionally, spiritually, andpractically.
I hope it did the same for youand that you walked away with
something meaningful.
Here are a few key takeaways Ipersonally cherished from this
conversation.
God is always at work.
As Gordon said, I've lost myfaith in coincidences.
(39:56):
Romans eight, verse 28 remindsus, and we know that in all
things, God works for the goodof those who love him, all
things.
Number two real leadership lookslike servanthood.
Mark 10, verses 44 through 45says, whoever wants to be first
must be slave of all.
(40:17):
For even the son of man did notcome to be served, but to serve.
Number three, God did not becomea servant when he became a man.
He became a man because he is aservant.
Just like he is Lord of Lords.
He is servant of servants.
(40:37):
Philippians two verses seventhrough eight says He made
himself nothing by taking thevery nature of a servant.
Number four, gratitude is asafeguard.
When we lose it, we open thedoor to temptation, to
bitterness and discouragement.
Romans one shows that ingratitude marked the beginning
(40:59):
of spiritual decline.
Number five, God desires hearttransformation, not just outward
obedience.
Ezekiel 36, verse 26 says, Iwill give you a new heart and
put a new spirit in you.
And finally prepare.
(41:20):
God reminded us that preparingfor death is one of the most
loving, practical things we cando.
Not out of fear, but out of loveand trust.
Philippians one, verse 24 says,it is more necessary for you
that I remain in the bodyBecause Paul knew that to remain
would mean to serve and helpmore people.
(41:42):
He was always thinking of othersjust like Jesus.
So yes, death is an enemy, butin Christ, we are no longer
slaves to its fear.
I.
Hebrews two verses 14 through 15reminds us so that by his death
he might break the power of himwho holds the power of death
that is the devil, and freethose who all their lives were
(42:07):
held in slavery by their fear ofdeath.
So avoiding it is another way toexpressing.
Fear of death and the dying toself that Jesus invites us into.
Doesn't have to wait for the endof life either.
It can start today.
It can be your life philosophy.
It is a very countercultural wayto live.
(42:30):
And what does that meanpractically?
It means letting go of self andasking instead, God, what is on
your heart today?
How do you want me toparticipate in your plans?
Or, God, what need do you wantto meet through me today?
These powerful questions wereemailed to me by the incredible
(42:50):
Christine Kane, and I encourageyou to ask them regularly.
You will be amazed at how Godanswers and how peaceful and
purposeful your life will becomewhen you daily choose to die to
self and walk.
With him, John 10, verse 10says, I have come that they may
(43:10):
have life and have it to thefull.
Amen.
So thank you so much forlistening, and congratulations
if you've made it to the end ofthis episode.
You've journeyed through one ofthe most important and
challenging and often avoidedconversations in life, how to
face death with faith and live.
(43:33):
With purpose if you'd like to godeeper and receive
encouragement, resources, andbehind the scenes update, I'd
love for you to become aninsider.
So join the newsletter at curesfor christ.kit.com/insider with
peace and love.
See you next time on Curious forChrist.
(43:59):
Hi, I hope you enjoy today'sepisode.
If so, would you like to take 30seconds and share it with a
friend who may also strugglewith knowing God and his purpose
for their life?
Also, leave a review on ApplePodcasts and let me know what
topics you'd like to hear aboutin the future.
Your voice matters.
(44:20):
I'll meet you back next Friday.
For another episode.
Welcome back to Curious forChrist.
Today's episode is unlike anyother topic we've talked about.
It's about our own mortality, wedon't like to talk about death
in our culture.
We avoid it.
We cover it up.
We distract ourselves withyouth, beauty and success.
(00:22):
Maybe you're young and thistopic feels distant or even
irrelevant, but the Biblereminds us in Ecclesiastes seven
verse two.
It is better to go to a house ofmourning than to go to a house
of feasting for death is thedestiny of everyone.
The living should take this toheart.
There is wisdom in reflecting onour own mortality.
(00:46):
In fact, we were created to liveforever with God.
One Corinthians 15, verse 26,caused death our greatest enemy,
the last enemy to be destroyedis death.
And yet, through Christ, Godtransformed that very enemy into
the doorway to life.
(01:06):
Second Timothy one verse 10says, our savior, Christ Jesus
has destroyed death and hasbrought life and immortality to
light through the gospel.
Let me share a personal story.
I once worked with Ryan Serhant,the celebrity real estate broker
you may know, from MillionDollar Listing one of New York's
(01:27):
top brokers.
A client of mine needed to sella condo on the Upper East Side
and through Ryan and his team.
We got it done.
Sometime later I saw a video ofhim on social media reading a
question about death.
He gave a little grin and said,I will never die, and it stuck
with me because that responsethough confident and even
(01:51):
inspiring on a surface.
We flex a philosophy that simplydoesn't leave room for
mortality, let alone forspiritual meaning in it.
But what if that's exactly wherewe begin to see clearly, as
Jesus said in Luke nine, verse24, whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoeverloses their life for me will
(02:13):
save it.
Ryan Holiday, another RyanNumber one, New York Times
bestselling author of TheObstacle is The Way Writes that.
Oftentimes the obstacle is theway as the title suggests.
In other words, what seems tostand in our way, such as aging,
for instance, or death as theultimate obstacle or our own
(02:36):
mortality might actually be thepath forward.
So let's take a closer look atwhat these realities can reveal
to us about God, life, purpose,and eternity with today's
conversation, because that'sexactly what Gordon Ferguson's
story illustrates sobeautifully.
His experience with cancer andfacing the brink of eternity
(02:59):
became a lens through which hecould see more clearly.
God.
Himself and his true purpose.
So today I'm honored to welcomeonce again my friend and teacher
Gordon Ferguson.
His voice of wisdom andvulnerability touched so many
hearts in our most Listened toepisode to date, episode 26,
which is about struggling totrust God and gender roles where
(03:22):
we discuss his most old book,God and Women.
How did I miss so much?
But today we are going toexplore something different.
We are going to talk aboutGordon's least sold book which
is titled My Rollercoaster Ridewith God and Cancer, than
sitting with him on the brink ofeternity.
A little bit about Gordon.
(03:42):
He's a graduate of NorthwesternState University and the Harding
School of Theology.
With more than 50 years ofministry experience, he has
served as an evangelist.
Elder and teacher authored 21books and produced numerous
teaching series in audio andvideo.
Gordon and his wife Theresa livein McKinney, Texas.
(04:02):
And for more information abouthis work, you can visit his
website at www dot.
Gordon ferguson.org.
And now without further ado,let's step into this powerful
conversation.
Welcome to Curious For Christ.
Do you ever find yourself lying,awake at night, wondering about
(04:26):
God's plan for your life?
Maybe you wake up with bigdreams, but feel unsure where to
start or what your next stepshould be.
If you're curious aboutexploring your faith and finding
purpose, then you've come to theright place.
Hi, I'm Alexandra.
I too felt lost, unsure of thedirection my life was leaking.
(04:46):
I yearned or understand mypurpose and have someone guide
me.
But I kept telling myself I wastoo busy.
The timing wasn't right, and mylack of clarity prevented me
from being consistent until Ifound Christ.
He brought peace into my lifeand revealed the way to find
purpose by anchoring myself.
(05:07):
In him.
In this podcast, we'll journeytogether exploring the Bible to
gain a deeper understanding ofhim and cultivate your own
personal relationship withChrist.
So open up your Bible, put inthose earbuds and listen up
because God is speaking to you.
He's making everything new andyou don't wanna miss it.
(05:28):
Let's get started.
Good morning, Gordon, and thankyou again for being here with me
today.
Thank you for having me.
It's always good to see you andbe with you.
And likewise.
(05:48):
And so just for the records, ourlisteners enjoyed so much our
previous conversation about Godand women, it's the top episode
of my entire podcast.
And so I'm excited about today'sconversation and we are gonna be
talking about another book and areally different topic, always
about God, but very differentright?
Nonetheless.
(06:09):
And for those who haven't readyour book yet, can you just
start by giving us a littlecontext?
What inspired you to ride Godand Cancer?
My rollercoaster ride with himon the brink of eternity well
having cancer.
And so the timing of this isvery interesting.
I was diagnosed January thefifth 2022.
(06:34):
So three years ago, plus some.
And so you go through all thesetests, they're trying to see if
it's metastasized and spread andall of that.
And so it started off actuallypretty good.
I wasn't that.
Concerned or I wasn't hit asmuch emotionally as I thought I
might be.
Most people are so fearful ofhearing the big C word, yeah.
(06:56):
And yet the stats say that halfof us are gonna get cancer, and
that's going to be an increasingstatistic.
And yet, at the same time,they're discovering ways to
treat it much better.
And so I have lists of peoplethat I pray for who have cancer.
The large majority are dealingwith it and are not terminal.
(07:18):
And so I think the improvementshave been pretty amazing.
And so the big C word should notbe quite as scary to us as it
has been in the past.
So when I was diagnosed, I was79 years old.
I'm 82 now, but I was 79 at thetime.
And so my comment to my surgeonwas we all have a shelf life and
(07:41):
I'm already 79.
And her comment was that's true,but you're in very good health
otherwise, and so we need to getthis treated.
And she was fairly hopeful thatit could be put in remission.
And so we went from there.
That night after I heard thediagnosis, I slept like a baby.
My problem wasn't emotionallybeing that disturbed about it.
(08:06):
But then the disturbance camefrom a friend of mine insisting
he had cancer and been treatedsuccessfully, and he insisted
that I move to another treatmentcenter.
So that was kinda hard to dealwith because I was already
fairly well set with the systemI was in, but I had to change.
(08:27):
And so that was the bigger item.
And so in the early part of thebook, I tell all about that
switch and it has some veryfunny parts to it.
Looking back on it, it actuallyis quite hilarious, but I ran
into so many things that werequote, coincidental and I don't
believe in coincidences.
In fact, I wrote an article onetime on my website called I Have
(08:51):
Lost My Faith, and then I put inparentheses in coincidences.
Because I believe that God'salways at work.
Yeah.
And he works in mysterious waysand he always seems to enjoy
putting me in some.
Weird situations.
I think God has a sense of humorand he likes to trick me and
(09:13):
play tricks on me.
And we have a, an interestingrelationship.
So the real challenge for me atfirst was just doing the switch.
I'm glad I did.
I went to a better system.
One of the top cancer treatmentcenters in the Dallas area is
University of TexasSouthwestern.
(09:33):
I.
I went to that treatment center.
I got a wonderful radiologist, afairly young Chinese woman,
raised in Boston, went to an IvyLeague undergraduate school
trained at Harvard MedicalSchool.
So she was a great oncologist.
And so God set me up with all ofthat, and I tell all about the
(09:55):
details leading to that, whichare.
Off the chart.
Amazing to me looking back.
And so one of the points in thefirst, maybe third of the book
as I describe all of this isdescribing that you see God in
different ways, and I felt likeI saw him in many ways, and it's
(10:16):
important.
To see him, I believe that Godcan be seen and wants to be
seen.
And so there are lessons likethat stand out, I think, in the
early part.
But I went after I finally goteverything lined up for the
treatment, I startedchemotherapy, six big pills
every day.
Three in the morning, three atnight, and then radiation five
(10:37):
days a week.
And so that was the start of it,and it was rather amazing.
I had no side effects for threeweeks.
I did get a blister on my foot,and they said that was normal
with the chemo.
But other than that, I was stillout doing my three to five mile
walks every day or nearly everyday, and feeling fine, feeling
(10:57):
no side effects at all.
Then on Easter Sunday, whichthat year was yesterday's date,
the 17th on that day we went tochurch, we came home, had my son
and his family over for lunch,and then I think we were
watching the Master's golf matchand all of a sudden my body
(11:21):
exploded.
All the fluid in my body cameout from every place it could
come out.
Wow.
And it was a shock and it justdepleted me of all fluids in my
body.
I went to the doctor on maybeTuesday after just being totally
out of it since Sunday.
And so she put me on a, an IV toget some fluids back in my body.
(11:46):
I went back home.
And it still was the same thing.
Nothing slowed down.
And so I was totally out of it,just in bed sleeping a lot of
the time.
Just really almost outta mysenses.
Went back to the same nursepractitioner on Friday and she
said she finally asked the rightquestion.
(12:08):
We males have a hard time goingto hospitals or going to doctors
even, at least a lot of us do.
And so she finally asked theright question.
She said, if you go home, do youthink you will be okay?
And I thought about that for aminute and I said, no, if I go
home, I think I will die.
(12:29):
And she said, that's what thechemotherapy doctor and I both
think.
So go check yourself in to thehospital.
And that led to a 23 day stay inthe hospital.
And during much of that time,that's why I called the ti or
put in the title on the brink ofeternity because I didn't know
if I'd live or die.
(12:49):
Yeah.
My family didn't know if I wouldlive or die.
I looked pretty dead.
Wow.
At one point.
But anyway, it was through thatperiod of time that I had so
many insights and so manyconversations with God and so
much happened.
I wouldn't take anything for theexperience.
Spiritually now.
(13:10):
Physically.
That's, that was a differentmatter.
It was a very tough time andthere were a lot of
complications that led to 23days.
But at any rate, spiritually itwas very good for me.
I love how you share that.
You saw God and everything, andI think that's really crucial to
handle the ups and downs oflife, or the uncertainty is to
(13:31):
always seek his face right.
And to, and then the insightthat you gained.
When you were physically at yourlowest is incredible.
One of the themes that reallystood out is living with
eternity in mind.
And that's something thatprobably during those 23 days,
you gained a differentperspective on what did that
perspective shape the way younavigated your cancer diagnosis
(13:54):
and treatment.
And then.
And then after being healed, youare cancer free as of to, three
years ago.
So how does that shape the wayyou live your life today?
I think it shapes it more nowthan ever to realize that we are
all terminal.
We all have a shelf life.
The Bible talks about, living tobe 70 by reasonable strength,
(14:18):
80.
That's Psalm 90, the oldestpsalm in the Bible.
And from that I've always known,that I will hopefully get old
and will die.
That's inevitable.
And so even from a youngchildhood, people would tell me,
the old guys would say, son,it's gonna go by a lot faster
(14:40):
than you think.
And I actually believed them.
Because they're all saying thesame thing.
And the Bible says over and overthat life is like a shadow and
it goes by so quickly.
But it goes by a lot morequickly than you think it will.
And so when I got to the pointthat I was facing death and
thinking I might well die, I.
(15:00):
Of course, then you evaluateeverything and you think, what
would I have done differently?
What would I advise other peopleto do, et cetera.
But I live every day.
My wife and I both with theconcept of we have today.
That's all anyone has.
Yeah.
No one's guaranteed lifetomorrow, but we have it today.
(15:22):
And so we try to live each dayto the full.
With God in mind and looking forGod's purposes in our life,
praying that he will open theright doors, shut the wrong
doors, just really basicallylead us, yeah.
By his spirit and into spendingtime in a way that would be
useful to him and to otherpeople.
(15:43):
And the assurance that he willlead us home and we are being
carried.
I really love that.
And then also the wisdom thatcomes from numbering our days so
that we make the best of ittoday.
What is certain is what we havetoday and how can we make the
best of it?
It is definitely wise to dothat.
I wanted to talk about anothersubject, another theme that you
(16:07):
mentioned in the book.
It's the role of servanthood.
You, it's an, it's anotherpowerful theme.
How did that call to serveremain steady or even deepen
while you were going throughsuch a personal battle?
Servanthood is a huge issue.
I have been a leader in churchesfor over half century, and I
(16:31):
have written two books,co-authored one, and wrote
another on my own about churchleadership because Jesus said in
Matthew chapter 20 that thegreatest of all is the servant
of all.
And he said that in the midst ofdealing with apostles who were
vying for position.
Who gets to sit on the left andwho gets to sit on the right.
(16:53):
And so they were, had a veryworldly view of leadership as
most do.
And yet Jesus said the realleader is the one who is a
servant of all.
And so I know that is true, butwhat actually led to the theme,
I think developing the way itdid with me in the hospital.
Is that I have I was raised in avery legalistic church setting.
(17:17):
I was trained in a fairlylegalistic ministry setting, and
so I've always struggled with myview of God.
There are certain parts of theBible, especially the Old
Testament, that seemed topresent God as being pretty
harsh and pretty judgmental.
And so I'm one of these withwhat I call an accused type
(17:41):
conscience.
And I can feel guilty when Ishouldn't.
There are other people thatdon't feel guilty when they
should, but that's another typeof personality.
But yeah.
At any rate, I've struggled alot with my view of God and
worked on it much of my life,and it came from overcoming my
past.
It came from trying to overcomesome of the early experiences
(18:04):
with my father, who was veryharsh when I was young.
All of that improved with time.
He improved tremendously withtime, and by the time he died he
and I had a very close emotionalrelationship, but I had a lot to
overcome.
And for some reason in one ofthose nights when I couldn't
sleep or I was in and out of.
(18:25):
Sleep and whatever else that wasgoing on.
I don't know, hallucinations orwhatever.
But there was a saying that afriend of mine.
Made.
Many years ago, I had a friendwe both taught in similar
ministry training schools, andhe and I were good friends and
he is written a lot of books,very good books, everything from
(18:48):
commentaries and deep subjectstuff, down to devotional books
that are extremely good.
His name is Jim McGuigan.
I'm not sure if Jim's stillalive or not.
He's somewhat older than me.
Not a lot.
Years ago, Jim said this, hesaid, God did not become a
(19:08):
servant when he became a humanin the person of Jesus.
God became a servant.
I.
God became, he became a human,became a man.
He became a human because he wasa servant.
That's who God is.
A servant.
And I thought about Matthew 20,the greatest leader will always
be the one that's a servant orslave of all.
(19:30):
And so if the greatest is thegreatest servant, it has to be
God, because God is the greatestbeing conceivable and beyond
conception.
And so it hit me in the middleof the night that God is a
servant.
I started thinking, okay, theBible says that God is the Lord
of Lord and the king of kings,but he's also the servant of
(19:55):
servants.
And so then I began to see Godin a much different light, in a
better light, and even thethings that I couldn't
understand or didn't like in theBible about God.
I said to myself, you've got tofigure out a better way of
(20:15):
looking at that.
There's something you're missinghere because God is at heart the
greatest servant it couldpossibly be.
And then I look at my own life.
I'm 82, my wife is 81.
We recently celebrated 60 yearsof marriage.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
(20:35):
But God has blessed us so much.
He has served us so much.
Yeah.
That should have been obvious tome that he's a servant.
And yet other people aren'tblessed as much as we are, and
they have to find ways toevaluate their experiences and
the Bible in light of the factthat God is the greatest servant
(20:57):
possible.
Yeah.
The, just the way that he guidesus to him, who are we, that he
would walk with us through allof it.
That is beautiful.
And then you bring also a uniqueperspective on salvation at some
point, especially inrelationship to servanthood and
grace.
Can you unpack that a bit forour listeners, especially that
(21:18):
notion of.
Grace versus work, how do yousee grace and obedience working
together?
What are your conclusions onthat?
To begin with, God is not justafter our obedience.
Obedience has a pur purpose, andthat is to help us develop into
(21:41):
who we are and to be like him.
So with little children, youtell them exactly what to do,
otherwise they run off into thestreet.
But in time, what you aretraining them to do is become
mature adults that are goodpeople and that do good things.
(22:02):
But it's not that, that youfocus on the doing of it.
It's that you focus on the heartchanging.
So that is who you become.
And so I look at God's grace asa motivation to help me become
more like him.
(22:23):
And so gratitude is huge.
If you look in Romans one wherehe describes the gentile world,
who had really gone off track.
He begins by talking about theylost their gratitude.
And I have helped people thatdealt with physical or chemical
recovery groups I've worked withguys that taught those groups
(22:48):
and all of them have said thesame thing.
You can tell when an addict isgoing to get back on their drug
of choice.
By when they cease to bethankful.
When they lose their gratitude,then they're wide open to Satan
getting them right back wherethey were before.
So gratitude just has so much todo with our response to God.
(23:12):
I.
And to realize that he's notjust some master cracking the
whip and saying, do this or dothat.
That's not his purpose.
His purpose is to help ourhearts change so that our whole
life is not so much about whatwe do, but who we are and who we
are is what the actions grow outof.
(23:37):
They become natural or much morenatural to us.
Because that's who we are, so wedo it.
Yeah.
And on the whole servanthoodthing, as I point out in the
book, I happen to live with awoman who has a gift of
servanthood that I have neverseen surpassed, maybe equaled,
(23:59):
but never surpassed.
And she did, she just serves.
It's natural.
She can't help it, she just doesit.
It's who she is.
And so I try to imitate herbecause she's a lot better at it
than I am.
That's great.
Yes.
That's that's fantastic.
Thank you.
And it's true.
Gratitude keeps us open to beingin touch with God's grace.
(24:20):
And once we lose that, then wego with our own ways.
We go back to what we, what wewant instead of being in touch
with.
What is doing and how he worksin our lives, so thank you.
So you've said also that weoften avoid talking about cancer
(24:41):
and death, and it's not an easytopic.
It's not a topic that we like totalk about in today's society.
We actually go at length toreally avoid it.
We want to look good and youngand feel young and avoid that
topic at all costs.
Why do you think that is beyondthe obvious of, vanity or
(25:02):
whatever that reason may be andhow can we as believers find
courage to face those realitieswith honesty, with faith, with
humility, perhaps also, I.
Disease and suffering isdifficult.
Yeah.
No one would volunteer it.
In fact, one of the things thatI used to pray in the hospital
(25:22):
is God, I'm not sure which sideI will wake up on eternity or
back in the hospital herebecause I felt like I was 50 50
on whether I lived or died.
But I said, Lord I want to live.
Especially for the sake of myfamily.
On the other hand, if I getthrough this, the scary part is
(25:44):
I'll have to do something likethis again in order to die,
because we're all going to die.
So I had to count that cost andrealize that.
But I think the I think theaging part is hard.
I've always had trouble withaging all of my life.
My 40th birthday, I stillremember That was like, wow,
(26:07):
that's old.
I did pretty good with 50 and60, oddly enough, because I was
still in really good health andtraveling all over the world and
speaking and teaching andwriting books and all of that.
70, on the other hand, that wasa hard one.
80 wasn't as hard because Ithought, okay.
Talks in Psalm 90 about livingto be 70 and by reasonable
(26:31):
strength, 80.
And so I started making a jokethat from this point forward I'm
playing on house money.
Not that I always haven't been,it's always been God's blessing
of life.
But at any rate I did okay onthat birthday, but aging's been
hard.
But on the other hand, death isthe most scary thought that most
(26:54):
of us have.
And there is a reason for that.
Paul said in one Corinthians 15that death is the last enemy.
It is an enemy.
And you can look at when peoplein the Bible died, like Stephen
or Jesus.
Which we're celebrating thattime of the year now.
(27:14):
Yeah.
But you look at that or John theBaptist, if you watch the
series, the Chosen, which Ihighly recommend john the
Baptist, when he's beheaded,they don't show the actual
beheading, he dies.
And that led to grief among.
Disciples among Christians.
So there's always going to be agrief connected with death for
(27:38):
those of us that are left.
But if we're viewing itcorrectly then those who die, if
they're right with God, thenthey're much better off.
And so Paul, who had actuallyseen the other side.
He said he didn't know if he wasin the body or out of it.
But he was caught up to thethird heaven and into paradise.
(28:01):
And saw things he couldn'trepeat.
And I think that's SecondCorinthians chapter 12.
And so in Philippians one, hesays it's far better to die and
be with Christ.
But he said, for your sake, I'drather stay so that I can serve
and help you.
So we have to get past thefears.
(28:21):
And to realize that if we'reright with God to die is gain,
as Paul said.
And it takes away a lot of thefear.
But the thing that's shocking tome, you mentioned the podcast
that we did before, was verywell received, very grateful,
and glad to hear that.
(28:42):
So the book that I wrote on theBible in Women has sold very
well.
It's an Amazon book available onAmazon.
And it is still being sold afterall of this time.
And yet, on the other hand, thenext book that I wrote was the
One on Cancer.
And it's out of 21 books thatI've written, two of which were
(29:05):
co-authored, but 21 books.
This book on cancer has sold theleast of any book I've ever
written by.
Far.
Wow.
People just don't want to talkabout it.
And yet those that have cancer,we all know we, we have friends
or relatives with cancer.
Every last one of us.
(29:27):
We may have it, we may have hadit, but it's so prevalent.
That I wanted to talk withpeople that had dealt with
cancer, so I'd know what toexpect.
Tell me what that radiationtreatment was like.
Tell me this, tell me how youfelt.
Because our emotions, you got,you have two levels of emotion.
(29:48):
One is the conscious and one isthe subconscious.
Consciously, most of the time Ijust lived life when I was
diagnosed and being treated.
It didn't seem to interrupt mydaily life much, and I didn't
think about it that much, butevery now and then, something
would trigger it and I wouldhave a lot of emotion well up.
(30:11):
And so we kinda live on twolevels emotionally.
But we need to recognize thatand we need to be able to talk
with people that have dealt withit or read books.
The people that I've talked tothat read the book.
With, and they've had cancer.
They said it was very helpful.
Just to know that all of theemotional up and down and
(30:33):
weirdness stuff that's happeningis not abnormal.
That's just the human psyche andthe way that we're built.
But it helps to have someone totalk to.
Yeah.
And then when we come down tothe inevitable event of death, I
actually, in the book.
The first third of it was aboutthe experience, and then I have
(30:55):
20 chapters of insights that Igained during that hospital
stay, basically.
So 20 different chapters, manyof which tie into the concept or
the theme of servanthood.
But I have some other thingsthat are also very important
that aren't exactly tied to thattheme.
(31:16):
One of them is getting yourhouse in order.
And I started thinking, wow, ifI die, I have four file
cabinets.
More than that I have fourdrawers in a big file cabinet
plus a smaller file cabinet fullof stuff.
And if my family has to gothrough all of that to decide
(31:37):
what's expendable and importantthat I hate to leave with them
with that.
And so I recognized my house wasnot in order.
And after I got through this Iwent through the file cabinets,
took a number of boxes ofmaterial to a professional
shredder and had it shredded.
(32:00):
I had a friend, I got electronicstuff everywhere.
I'm a techie guy and I flew aguy in, I paid for his plane
flight in and back.
He stayed with me, but I had himhelp me for about three days
deal with all of my electronicstuff so that my family would
not have to go through that andfigure out what was important
(32:22):
and what wasn't.
And so I'm trying to keep myhouse in order more because I've
seen so many families that werejust had so many problems.
Because their loved one who diedwasn't prepared.
His house wasn't an oil.
I've been to several at my age.
I happen to attend a lot ofmemorial services, at least
(32:45):
lately.
One of them died at a, to me, afairly young age.
He was in his maybe mid sixtiesor early sixties.
But his daughter, his growndaughter, got up and did her own
little short sermon.
She said when my dad died, hehad his business in order.
(33:05):
We knew exactly what to do.
Everything was legally writtenout.
We did not have to make onedifficult decision, and she said
it was such a hard time when hepassed because it was sudden and
unexpected.
She said we didn't have tofigure anything out.
He had it all outlined.
(33:26):
We knew exactly what to do.
And she says that was such arelief and a comfort, right?
And she said, you need to dothat for your family.
And so I have a chapter talkingabout that.
And my wife and I have had awill for many years.
We've redone it probably four orfive times as circumstances have
(33:48):
changed.
I have instructions about mymemorial service.
I have instructions about myfinancial issues, who to
contact, phone numbers, who tocall first when I die.
All of that's written out.
All of that's been written outfor a long time.
So my house was already inbetter order than most, but I've
(34:08):
tried to get people to writewills who won't do it.
And yet we're all going to die.
Yeah.
And so if there's anything Iwould love to do, it would be to
convince people that the idea ofaging in death as a part of the
human process, and you need toaccept it as a normal thing,
even though it's scary and youneed to prepare.
(34:32):
So I think it's a big lesson.
Yes.
And it is part of living witheternity in mind as well, is
what we wanna leave with ourfamily and our loved one and and
that with God we can do allthings.
We can face that enemy and wecan take actions today to
alleviate our family, our lovedones, so that they can.
(34:53):
Grieve in peace.
And continue with faith.
By the way let me throw one morething in.
I know that you have interviewedJeannie Shaw for a podcast.
Yes.
She's a very dear friend ofmine.
But about 10 years ago, yes shegot the idea of putting a book
together called An Aging Grace.
Yes, and she had differentwriters for it, and they talked
(35:17):
about the whole process of agingand various things about it.
Everything from financial issuesto sexual issues to.
She covered the gamut prettywell.
It is a great book that she puttogether.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I wrote a chapter aboutaging and then I wrote the final
chapter about the inevitabilityof death.
(35:40):
And I think I did it in a verypositive way.
And so that's a good book tohelp people because there are
many things about aging that areunexpected.
And unwanted.
But we have to accept all of us.
Hard go through it.
Yes.
I will put that book in the shownote as well, the reference so
(36:02):
that it's a great one.
And I believe that you wrotethose articles before your
cancer diagnosis.
Oh, yeah.
That was 10 years ago.
So 10 years ago.
Yeah.
It was actually, did you havesaid something differently
perhaps?
No, I've reread them.
I thought they were pretty good.
Oh, nice.
But I feel like Jeanie preparedme Oh yeah.
(36:23):
To think about such thingbefore.
Yeah.
Since I was one of the olderwriters in the book.
I think it was helpful to me.
I think God designed that and Icalled Jeannie up after I got
the email about the assignmentsand said, Jeannie, you gave me
the chapter on aging and death,the two hardest things for me.
(36:44):
And she just laughed.
And she says that's not reallythe intent, Gordon.
It has a different title inthat.
Each of the chapters, but I saidit gets down to that and it did,
but I tried to do it in apositive way.
As I believe God would have uslook at it.
Absolutely.
So we are con concluding here,our interview.
(37:05):
Is there one final word ofencouragement that you'd like to
share with our listeners beforewe.
Number one, get on Amazon andlook up the title of that book
and buy it.
You can get it on the Kindleversion or in the paperback
version.
And I would love to see the bookread more because there are
many.
(37:25):
Principles that I cover in those20 chapters, the last two thirds
of the book, there are manyprinciples I cover as well as
the whole ordeal of how do youjust even face cancer when
you're diagnosed.
But the chapters have some greatcontent in them.
I feel like it's one of the bestbooks I've ever written, and yet
(37:47):
it's the least sold.
As I said, by far of any of the21 books that I've written, so I
had no idea it would be sodifficult to get people to read
it, but it gives you many lifelessons, not, it's not all about
death and dying, trust me.
(38:08):
It's about living and how tolive and how to view God, and
how to view yourself, and how toview you and God in
relationship.
And what a personal relationshipwith God is all about.
How can we see God?
How can we communicate with God?
It has so many spiritual lessonsin it, aside from the issue of
(38:29):
disease and death.
And so I would definitelyencourage people to buy it and
read it.
Everyone that's contacted meafter reading it was really
happy that they read it.
For sure.
And we have the spirit of power,not of timidity.
We can face and go there withGod and see what renewed
relationship we can have withhim.
(38:50):
A deeper one for sure.
Thank you so much, Gordon.
Your wisdom, your vulnerability,your eternal perspective are
such a gift to us.
I thank you so much again.
And I will put all the links inthe show notes for the books and
Jeannie Shaw's book as well.
And I wish you the best and Iwish you good health for a long
time.
(39:11):
Thank you very much, Alexander.
It's great being back on yourpodcast.
You're doing a great work.
Keep it up.
Thank you.
Your spirit communicatesencouragement.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Hmm.
Before we wrap up, I want toacknowledge this was a bit of a
rollercoaster.
We covered a lot of deep,meaningful ground and it stirred
(39:34):
me emotionally, spiritually, andpractically.
I hope it did the same for youand that you walked away with
something meaningful.
Here are a few key takeaways Ipersonally cherished from this
conversation.
God is always at work.
As Gordon said, I've lost myfaith in coincidences.
(39:56):
Romans eight, verse 28 remindsus, and we know that in all
things, God works for the goodof those who love him, all
things.
Number two real leadership lookslike servanthood.
Mark 10, verses 44 through 45says, whoever wants to be first
must be slave of all.
(40:17):
For even the son of man did notcome to be served, but to serve.
Number three, God did not becomea servant when he became a man.
He became a man because he is aservant.
Just like he is Lord of Lords.
He is servant of servants.
(40:37):
Philippians two verses seventhrough eight says He made
himself nothing by taking thevery nature of a servant.
Number four, gratitude is asafeguard.
When we lose it, we open thedoor to temptation, to
bitterness and discouragement.
Romans one shows that ingratitude marked the beginning
(40:59):
of spiritual decline.
Number five, God desires hearttransformation, not just outward
obedience.
Ezekiel 36, verse 26 says, Iwill give you a new heart and
put a new spirit in you.
And finally prepare.
(41:20):
God reminded us that preparingfor death is one of the most
loving, practical things we cando.
Not out of fear, but out of loveand trust.
Philippians one, verse 24 says,it is more necessary for you
that I remain in the bodyBecause Paul knew that to remain
would mean to serve and helpmore people.
(41:42):
He was always thinking of othersjust like Jesus.
So yes, death is an enemy, butin Christ, we are no longer
slaves to its fear.
I.
Hebrews two verses 14 through 15reminds us so that by his death
he might break the power of himwho holds the power of death
that is the devil, and freethose who all their lives were
(42:07):
held in slavery by their fear ofdeath.
So avoiding it is another way toexpressing.
Fear of death and the dying toself that Jesus invites us into.
Doesn't have to wait for the endof life either.
It can start today.
It can be your life philosophy.
It is a very countercultural wayto live.
(42:30):
And what does that meanpractically?
It means letting go of self andasking instead, God, what is on
your heart today?
How do you want me toparticipate in your plans?
Or, God, what need do you wantto meet through me today?
These powerful questions wereemailed to me by the incredible
(42:50):
Christine Kane, and I encourageyou to ask them regularly.
You will be amazed at how Godanswers and how peaceful and
purposeful your life will becomewhen you daily choose to die to
self and walk.
With him, John 10, verse 10says, I have come that they may
(43:10):
have life and have it to thefull.
Amen.
So thank you so much forlistening, and congratulations
if you've made it to the end ofthis episode.
You've journeyed through one ofthe most important and
challenging and often avoidedconversations in life, how to
face death with faith and live.
(43:33):
With purpose if you'd like to godeeper and receive
encouragement, resources, andbehind the scenes update, I'd
love for you to become aninsider.
So join the newsletter at curesfor christ.kit.com/insider with
peace and love.
See you next time on Curious forChrist.
(43:59):
Hi, I hope you enjoy today'sepisode.
If so, would you like to take 30seconds and share it with a
friend who may also strugglewith knowing God and his purpose
for their life?
Also, leave a review on ApplePodcasts and let me know what
topics you'd like to hear aboutin the future.
Your voice matters.
(44:20):
I'll meet you back next Friday.
For another episode.
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