STANDARD SETTERS

                                           STANDARD SETTERS

     I always tried to figure out the meaning of the scripture that says, "When the enemy comes in like a flood, God will raise us a standard against him." In my human mind one time I figured out that that standard was a flag that God would spiritually put in front of us that told the enemy to stop right there.
    That's logical and I banked on that for years. Yet, bad things happened to my family and me.
     There were other things I reasoned in my human mind, like the practice of speaking God's written Word and the enemy can't touch the situation. It worked some times but not always.
     Today I have a more meaningful revelation from the Holy Spirit for my husband and me.
     Cancer was found in the entire left lower quadrant of Steve's abdomen. The doctors suspected cancer and had even removed a malignant testicle and sperm cord a month ago. Their intent in the present surgery was to remove a non-functioning kidney and the ureter tube and a small portion of his bladder. They didn't anticipate the extent of the cancer when they opened him up to do their job.
     When we were in the pre-op room waiting for the time for him to go to the operating room, both doctors who were doing the surgery came in at the same time. My husband and I had discussed previously what we were going to say to them. He said he was going to tell them to operate on him like he was 30 years old instead of 74. I said I was going to tell them that they are going to operate on a man who is in the top ten rankings of swimmers in his age group in the U.S. and he wants to be the number one when he's 100. My husband frowned but I knew that, if given the opportunity, I would say that.
    The opportunity presented itself when both doctors came into the pre-op room. My husband was prevented from saying anything because he was taking a pre-op breathing treatment and had the breathing pipe in his mouth puffing away. My opportunity was there, so I emphatically stated to the doctors that they have a man who is not like other men, that he is a champion swimmer and in the top ten in his age group in the U.S. I continued to profess to them that he wants to continue to swim and become the number one swimmer when he's 100.
     They left the pre-op room and headed to the operating room, saying, "We'll do our best."
     When they got into his left abdominal area they found that he had malignant tumors everywhere in the area from above the kidney all the way down to below his groin area. They were up to the job. What they thought would be an easy operation that would take an hour and a half actually took over five hours. They poked and probed and cut and sewed until they got all of the visible cancerous tumors out of his body which took many more hours than anticipated.
     The doctors called him an amazing man and a marvel man because he won so many swimming gold medals while carrying around all that cancer in his body. They were amazed that he never had any pain, never had any blood in his urine. He was always the picture of health.
     During the operation they took out many, many tumors successfully, along with some organs. His prognosis was excellent. The doctors said there was a possibility that he might have radiation that will target the cancerous areas and that he certainly would have chemotherapy, which provides the last clean sweep to rid his body of all the microscopic tumors that were impossible for them to see. He took the news as if it was no big deal.
     While thanking God one morning it came to me, surely by the Holy Spirit who is the Teacher, that if we had not spoken his goals to the doctors before the surgery that they would have seen the extent of the cancer while operating, thought about his age, and they would have closed him back up and told him to have chemo and radiation and he probably would have died in a short time.
     The fact that we set the standard for them, to treat him like his body is the body of a 30 year old, and to fix him so that he will be number one in swimming competition when he's 100 years old, those comments set the standard. We spoke them out verbally to the doctors and they aimed to please, determined to treat him like he is forty years younger than he is, and to fix him so that he can get back to competing in swimming and winning gold medals until he's 100 years old.
     We spoke the standard and they performed the actions that would bring the standard into being. They could have closed him up without removing the large amount of cancer, but they didn't. They cleaned out the multitude of tumors, taking hours of their time to fix him, probably with other patients waiting for their services. The task didn't look too ominous to them when they were reminded of the standard we had set for them, to fix him so he can still win gold medals. They were up to the task and did their marvelous work, led by God's angels, I know.
     We can set our standards low or we can set them high. In this situation we had set our standards really high and the surgeons brought it into being.
     The scripture became real to me by this experience. The enemy had come in like a flood in the form of cancer. God impressed us to tell the doctors the standard that we expected. They did it according to our desire.
     When we speak words revealed to us by the Holy Spirit we are proclaiming our standards every time, and God's working angels will bring the standard into being.
     Knowing that a standard is really a goal or a desire or a wish or a prayer that is filled with faith, it will become a reality.
    My standards are perfection in every area of my life. I'm not standing for anything else.
    How about you?