How has cancer and this encounter with your own mortality changed how you see your life and how you see death?
On an emotional level, we really do deny the fact that we’re mortal and our time is limited. The day after my diagnosis, one of the words I put down in my journal was “focus.” What are the most important things for you to be spending your time doing? I had not been focused.
The second change was you realize that there’s one sense in which if you believe in God, it’s a mental abstraction. You believe with your head. I came to realize that the experiential side of my faith really needed to strengthen or I wasn’t going to be able to handle this.
It’s one thing to believe God loves you, another thing to actually feel his love. It’s one thing to believe he’s present with you. It’s another to actually experience his presence. So the two things I wrote down in my journal: one was focus and the other one was “Know the Lord.” My experience of his presence and his love was going to have to double, triple, quintuple or I wouldn’t make it.
I'm thankful to @Tish_H_Warren who interviewed me for this article. It was a joy to discuss the impact the resurrection has on our lives (and my cancer).
How a Cancer Diagnosis Makes Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Mean More https://t.co/dIQn4VMmU4
— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) April 11, 2022