Pray With Urgency and Expectancy

I know that many people don't know how Zac Smith is doing, so I wanted to pass on his latest update.
Please pass this on to people who will pray with urgency and expectancy:

Unkindly Showing Kindness

Posted By zac on March 11, 2010

The past few days have taken their toll. The cancer in my abdomen is growing. I can feel it expanding with my fingertips. The pain is getting worse. Every day is worse than the day before. I am taking pain medicine around-the-clock now. I sleep about 60-90 minutes at a time. I yearn for an uninterrupted six hours of sleep. Or for an hour of no pain.
And yet through it all, I am seeing blessings. People continue to shower us with notes of encouragement or with checks. Those who love us are helping us get things in order. While it hurts to finalize things, it gives me peace knowing my wife and kids will be taken care of.
Everything is a gift from God. This life appears to be simply a sequence of blessings prompting a response of worship to God. And so I worship Him through the pain. He shows me kindness.
John Piper says it beautifully in his book on Job:

The Lord has made me drink
The cup of his severity
That he might kindly show to me
What I would be when only he
Remains in my calamity.
Unkindly he has kindly shown
That he was not my hope alone.

God unkindly showed kindness to Job. And He is unkindly showing kindness to me.
God has never promised me tomorrow; but God has promised me eternity.

Remember Today Forever!

I will always remember today, September 15, 2009.

Taken from www.hell0-righton.com (Zac Smith's blog):
"I found out today that I now have no metabolically active metastatic disease. The lesions in my liver and spleen have resolved. The lesions are still there, but there is no active cancer in them. The doctor told me that he has never seen anyone respond to the treatment like this. I will go to a specialist soon to have the lesions looked at. But I am cancer free at the moment and do not have to do any more chemo.

I thank God for the healing that occurred — medicinal and miraculous. I am so excited He allowed me to go through this. And thanks to the thousands who prayed for me. To God be the glory."

I can't hardly believe this news! Can you?!

I Worried, Therefore I Doubted

It's hard living off of one income. In Southern California. With a child. I complain all the time actually; way more than I should because I'm actually so blessed. But honestly, it's hard to keep perspective when everyone I surround myself with has more material blessings than me. So...I worry. And when I worry I'm revealing the seed of doubt that has taken root. Maybe the only way to get rid of it is a little at a time, but I wish it was quicker.

I've been worrying lately about money, but when I do God gives me His Word:

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?" (Matt. 6:24-26, NLT)
God will provide. Stop comparing yourself with others; you're looking in the wrong direction! Start living for the right Master and you don't actually need to worry about anything! And here's two blessings that God used within the past two days to actually show me I don't need to worry:

• My uncle gave me a random small "cash" gift
• Our tax return is more than enough to pay off a debt that I've been thinking about for months!

The Master is good...who else is like Him?! Nobody!