Looking beyond problems

The clanking sound of trolleys with dodgy wheels. The clinical smell filling every area of the building. The noise of sirens coming and going. The bustle of people in array of different coloured overalls. The rows of people sitting in a kind of nervous bubble waiting for their appointments.

It can only mean one thing.

Hospital.

This last week was a testing one in many ways. Not least because Dawn and I had to take one of our daughters to hospital. She was going to receive the results of an MRI scan she had a few weeks before.

The reason she was having it is that a large mass had been detected on her ovary.

So here we were sitting in the waiting room of Bradford Royal infirmary, waiting to hear the results of the scan and the tests Bailey had had done the week before.

In my head, it was a straight choice.

She either had cancer or she didn't.

So as you can well imagine, sitting in that waiting room was probably the longest wait I have ever experienced. I can't imagine how Bailey must have felt.

After what seemed an age, a nurse with a clipboard came out into the packed waiting room and called Baileys name out.

All three of us rose from our seats in trepidation really. We were ushered into a small examination room. The room was cold and bare except for an examination table, an X-ray viewer, a sink and an ominous looking trolley with an assortment of rubber gloves and syringes on it. We were told to wait in this room and the Doctor would be along in due course.

"In due course" turned out to be a further 40 minute wait.

All this time waiting, I managed to somehow let all my Christian faith float away. A stronghold was building at breakneck speed in my head.

I managed to convince myself that the news would be bad.

And my heart was bleeding inside.

Obviously I didn't communicate this to Bailey as she had more than enough on her plate. But I have to say she was so relaxed about it. Even to the point of still giving me her normal levels of cheek!

After another eternity, a young doctor entered the examination room holding a big clipboard and a set of notes.

The tension was almost unbearable.

She sat down opposite us and looked directly at Bailey. The first thing she said was, "The good news is the mass isn't cancerous, but you do have a massive cyst that needs to be removed ASAP via an operation.

My body seemed to just degenerate into a mass of jelly. I didn't know whether it was relief or shock.

Needless to say, we were all relieved. Even though there is still some stuff to go through for Bailey.

In the car on the way back to my daughters house to drop her off, I told Bailey of my sheer fight with myself before that decision, how I had convinced myself it would be bad, how I had forgotten to trust God in all of this.

She said.

Nonchalantly.

"I would have beaten it if it was cancer."

She said it as if it was Just something she would have dealt with.

Her faith is so strong.

Inside I felt beautifully corrected.

I knew in that moment I had learned something from my daughter. I knew I had moved another step up in my glory to glory journey.

God showed me something in HD!

Bailey always looks beyond the problem to where the possibilities lay.

She knew it was possible to beat it, I had convinced myself there was a unassailable problem in the way.

I'm not always like that thank the Lord!

Dawn and I were reflecting on these two verses of scripture yesterday.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3 NIV)

Set your minds on things above, not earthly things.

It may as well say, focus on the possibilities not the problem!

The thing is everything is possible when we focus on God.

Bailey was able to do this in a very serious situation.

So today I wonder how many of you guys reading this blog post have some kind of seemingly impossible issue, blockage or problem standing in the way of your future?

Maybe it is time we looked past the problem to the possibilities?

Maybe physically and consciously it is time to set our minds on things above not on the earthly impossibilities.

Setting our minds on things above will help us to see past the problem and connect with the hope that is found in Christ Jesus.

Because in Christ the hope dynamic changes dramatically, earthly hope is just that, hope, but heavenly hope is a place where visions and dreams, solutions and healing are found in abundance.

I really pray this post will shift something today for someone.

The Spirit of God, through my daughter, has without doubt shifted some stuff in me this week.

Setting our mind on things above means we look past the problem and lock in to the infinite possibilities that God offers through immeasurable grace to every last one of us.

May the Spirit of God fall smack bang on you today.