Salted with fire

“For everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49, ESV).

I have been following the medical and spiritual condition of a local Christian man since he was diagnosed nine years ago with an extremely rare thyroid cancer that comes with a life expectancy of two to three years.

In 2007, the cancer spread to his lungs. All reasonable hope was lost. Nevertheless, people far and wide were praying unreasonable prayers against all hope. In 2008, the only doctor in the world who was researching drugs for this type of cancer happened to be at his hospital. Experimental treatments with the drug arrested the growth of the disease, but the chemo symptoms were unpleasant. Nevertheless, the man, who is a high school teacher, kept teaching. He taught through it all.

Three years later, a new strain of cancer was spotted in him. But his doctor had developed a new drug to fight against it. The chemo symptoms got worse. In 2014, the drugs no longer worked on him and he started an experimental gene-therapy program. He kept teaching, and people kept praying.

Every now and then, email updates would appear in my in-box. They were so gut-wrenching that at times, I admit, I didn’t read them. Some soared with defiant faith, others plunged into perplexity, though never crossing the line into despair and anger. I felt like Hagar felt when she left her dehydrated son Ishmael under a tree and walked a bowshot’s distance so she wouldn’t have to see his wretched end:

“Let me not look on the death of the child” (Genesis 21:16, ESV).

Recently, I received an update on the patient in which he mentioned a new treatment he has just embarked on. His current report ends thus:

“I have a nagging sense that this new treatment won’t work, but I do feel that inexplicable peace that Paul writes about in Philippians 4. I’m not certain how much time I have left, but I somehow believe God will work it for good (Romans 8). A scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie comes to mind. Gandalf tells Frodo that no one wants to live to see terrible times, but the only thing we control is what we do with the time we have left.”

“Everyone will be salted with fire.”

Although there are several plausible interpretations of this verse, I take it to mean that no one who ends up entering the kingdom will do so without passing through trials that test one’s faith and burn off the dross. It can be a painful process, and takes courage to bear. We must accept the pain of putting desires to death, self-will to death, and every human dream to death that competes with the dream of heaven. We do not choose our “saltings,” only how we will respond to them.

On the other hand, there is no one who will say it was not worth it:

“But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13, ESV).

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