In the weekend newspaper I read an article, which was extracted from Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America And the World by Barbara Ehrenreich. Basically she is railling against those who say that positive thinking can help you survive cancer.
She quotes Lance Armstrong as saying that cancer is the best thing that ever happened to him. Others also say how having cancer has made them re-evaluate their lives, so they call it "a gift".
It seems rather perverse to call a disease that invades one's body and, if unchecked, can kill, "a gift" . What they seem to be saying is that it forced them to see life in a new way. It made me think how sad it is when something as bad as cancer has to strike before people take a close look at their lives.
When God called me into the Baptist ministry about 30 years ago, I gave up my job to go to theological college. At the time I found a surprising number of people wished they, too, could give up their current jobs and do something different. But family, mortgage, etc meant they felt they were locked in to their job and lifestyle.
It doesn't need a call from God to enable you to take a fresh look at your life - although that can help! It certainly needn't take a killer disease to do it.
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