“God, I do not fully know why, but I trust You”: Ps Dr Philip Lyn of Skyline SIB on his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis

“Whatever reason it is that this has happened to me, it is not because God doesn’t love me. It is not because God doesn’t care for me,” said Pastor Dr Philip Lyn, founder and Senior Pastor of Skyline SIB in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, as he spoke at length about being recently diagnosed with fourth stage nose cancer.

On an episode of faith-based vodcast Let’s Get Real Malaysia released last Sunday (April 13), Ps Philip, who is a also a medical doctor, shared for over an hour about how his faith has helped him grapple with his diagnosis, which will require extensive treatment including chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy in the months to come.

“I thought that while I’m still going through the first course of my chemotherapy, while I’m still able-bodied and sharp in mind … to chart a little bit of my thoughts in the journey I’m taking right now,” Ps Philip told podcast host, Brandon Ho.

“Having been a preacher for so many years and articulating propositional truths from the Bible with great conviction, I think one of the things that many want to know – and I would want to know in my own journey – is: Do these truths actually stack up? Do they actually hold when you apply them existentially?”

Here is an excerpt of his interview, edited for length and clarity, that details his thoughts on what if God doesn’t heal, how Scripture has bolstered his faith during this crisis and how we can cover him in prayer.

What was it like when you first received your cancer diagnosis?

Weeks before the diagnosis, I was being treated for an infection of some of the nodes in my neck. With antibiotics daily, that seemed to be resolving, and so I was in a pretty good place at that point in time.

But there were a couple of stubborn nodes that just wouldn’t go away. Then a blood test came back from Singapore, where I had gone for a second opinion, and that blood test suggested that I could have a cancer.

I was asked to go down quickly and get a special scan done called a PET scan, and eventually to do an excision biopsy that confirmed the cancer.

At the point in which I heard the news, actually I was charting along a course where I thought everything was resolving. So suddenly to get this huge news, that was shocking.

In the face of his shocking cancer diagnosis, Ps Philip (left) clung to the knowledge that God loves him, he told Let’s Get Real Malaysia vodcast host Brandon Ho (right).

The first thing was, obviously, it’s entirely shocking. You feel your whole body just begin to have a clammy, cold feeling and that surreal feeling just wells up within you: “It can’t be happening to me.” But the data is what it is.

I think when it began to slowly sink in, suddenly the repercussions and implications of this began to well up. I saw how it would affect my family, the people I love, the church that I love, the leaders in my church, my good friends and my buddies and others in a wider sphere in both the church and the Kingdom.

For a moment, that responsibility weighed very heavily because I would be a bearer of devastating news, and that I think just weighed far more heavily on me than the fact that I’m in a limited timeframe.

But by God’s blessing and grace, I was not paralysed. There was no paralysis of the will. I just did what I needed to do as the next step.

Was “Why, God?” one of your first questions?

Truthfully and honestly and amazingly, “why” never popped up as a first question.

That’s in part because of how I have tutored the church and preached over the years, that if we go down the rabbit hole of “why”, we will probably not come up with any satisfactory answer.

It potentially could involute into self-pity and it could also potentially paralyse us as to what we need to do and how we can use the time both profitably for the Kingdom and for the people and the family.

So the “why”, it floats around somewhere in the background, but it never overwhelmed me and got me into self-pity and wallowing in the mud of hopeless(ness).

And because of that, I don’t think I ever got angry with God. I never had this anger: “Why, God? Why has this happened when I have served You so faithfully over the years?”

That would engender a spirit of what I would call entitlement – that means my serving God was out of a plea bargain and not truly out of grace. Because I believe deep down in my heart that I serve God in response to His grace, with gratitude, then the entitlement factor was never, ever strongly there.

Did you ever think that this trial is a test from God?

It has never, in a major way, taken course in my mind. But I’d like to address this big question.

The first thing I would say, philosophically, is that none of us may know the big “why”. But just because we don’t know the reason doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no reason.

Once we do not know the real reason, then we (tend to) project our reasons. Some of these reasons are projected because of our own theological leanings or our own biblical readings of certain specific situations. We come up with a multitude of potential reasonings.

For example, this could be a direct attack from the kingdom of hell and from a satanic attack. Is it possible? Yes.

This could be something that God is trying to teach me because of my sins in the past. Is this possible? Yes.

Is it due to a generational curse that I’ve not broken? Possible.

Is it because of something simple like I’m not looking after my mental, emotional, physical health and there was over-stress? It is possible.

Is it one of those chance factors that the virus that causes my cancer actually just came and God has allowed it? Possible.

These are all possibilities and some of them have biblical warrants. But I would humbly say that every one of us may be right, but we may also be wrong.

It’s very much like the six blind men who went to feel the elephant to find out what the elephant was like. One felt the ear and said the elephant was like a fan. Another one felt the trunk and said the elephant was like a thick rope. Another one felt the legs and said the elephant was like a tree stump. Another one felt the chest and said the elephant was like a wall.

Now, the question is: Who was right? Well, they were all partially right and also they were all completely wrong. The only person who can say they were all completely wrong is the person who has full sight of the elephant.

In my situation, God is the only One who has full sight of my situation. Therefore, from this posture, I surrender and yield to Him. I will say: “God, I do not fully know why, but I trust You.”

Whatever reason it is that this has happened to me, it is not because God doesn’t love me. It is not because God doesn’t care for me. It is not because God is not involved in my pain and suffering in the journey I’m taking. It is not because He is not involved in my life.

Why? Otherwise God would never send His Son. Jesus would never come into a fallen and broken and sin-filled humanity and get involved with us and show us the love of God and intervene and die on the cross for our sins to redeem us and then rise again from the dead, to show that He has conquered sin and death and hell.

I’m absolutely convinced of the historicity and the truth of the resurrection. It’s unshakable for me that the resurrection is the only fact that can explain why the Gospel is what it is today, and where the Church is today, and where I am today in serving Him.

Whatever the reason is, it’s not because God doesn’t love me or care for me. That is enough for me, because if I go down any further beyond what God has revealed, I’m going down potential endless rabbit holes that will actually not do the Kingdom, or me, or anyone, any good.

What should our heart posture be when we are faced with difficult news?

Another propositional truth I’ve taught the church and I’ve learned from the Scriptures for myself over the years has been the posture Jesus expected of His disciples in a crisis.

You remember the story when Jesus was crossing the lake in a boat with the disciples? There was a severe storm and the disciples were absolutely terrified. They woke Jesus up and He stood up, rebuked the storm, calmed the storms.

And then He said these words: “Why do you fear? Where is your faith?”

“If we go down the rabbit hole of ‘why’, we will probably not come up with any satisfactory answer,” said Ps Philip.

This question tells me that Jesus was expecting them to do something else, not wake Him up and let Him calm the storm, because otherwise why would He rebuke them?

He would have said: “Guys, you did the right thing, you cried out to me and I did it for you.” He didn’t say: “And now you know that I’m truly the Son of God.”

He said: “Where is your faith?”

I knew that when Jesus asked this question, there were only two possibilities (of what He expected of His disciples). The first one is that even if the storm doesn’t let up and just continues and rages on, they would trust that they would still be safe.

Why? Because Jesus is in the boat with them. They won’t sink. He’s in the boat with them and they will get to the other side safely. This is faith seen in resilience, perseverance, a complete belief in the God who is and the God who is with you and will not let you down because He’s a good God.

The second faith element was that having seen Jesus demonstrate signs and wonders, healing the sick and doing incredible miracles, there would have been an impartation of faith into the disciples’ lives. Jesus was expecting that faith to be actualised and activated.

Maybe Jesus was expecting them to stand up, rebuke the storm, speak peace to it, be still and come against the forces of darkness that were trying to drown them and kill them off, and stand against the satanic attacks of the enemy.

Somewhere along those two lines I think lies a balance that undergirds the posture that I have adopted.

Firstly, the posture of: I’m yielded to God, I’m totally surrendered. He is a good God, He is in total control of my life, and He will see me through. Because He’s in the boat with me, I won’t sink.

That’s resilience, that’s perseverance, that’s anchoring on the God who is.

At the same time, the flip side of the coin is to stand against and take authority against the powers of darkness, against the satanic forces that want to kill me, against the forces that want to break up my ministry, break up my will and all those other things.

All these things that the enemy wants to do for evil, I will stand up and speak against that. So by virtue of that, I rise in intercession the best way I can, even as my body gets weaker and I need other people to support me in prayer. 

Do you fear what is to come?

Medically, I know what may pan out. Spiritually, I’m praying that my body will hold up and be strong, and my mind will continue to be strong, and my spirit.

I know what’s coming, I prepare my best for it but I don’t allow the possibilities – because there are endless permutations as to how this will pan out – to really get stuck in my mind on a day-to-day basis.

Anxiety, yes. A little bit of anxiety of the unknown, yes. But a fear that’s seized by, like, total paralysis and hopelessness and total despair? They can come once in a while, but they hardly stay long. It doesn’t linger but it passes through.

In the end, I have to put it in God’s hands because the permutations are potentially endless. So I do what I need to do to keep my body strong, my mind in a good place, get enough rest, get enough sleep, make sure I take the usual precautions and so on, and give God my best.

I must say, sometimes I wake up in the early hours of the morning and I’m on my own, everybody else is sleeping, it’s quiet, and I think to myself: It’s surreal. It’s like, it’s happening to me or not happening to me?

Sometimes I can’t believe it, then I say: “Oh yeah, it is real.”

What if God doesn’t heal you?

Thank you for asking that, because it ultimately is the elephant in the room.

My reply to that would be the same reply that Daniel’s three friends had when they came before Nebuchadnezzar. I’ve actually had to imbibe this into myself for many years even before this happened.

You remember that Nebuchadnezzar threatened the three friends of Daniel with the fiery furnace if they would not bow down and worship the idol he had set up? And their reply was – and it undergirds my own reply – “Our God is able to deliver us. But if not, we will still not bow to your idol.”

So essentially this is what we call “but if not” faith – the faith where the rubber really hits the road and when what you pray for and what you believe in, what you declare, doesn’t come to pass, and God takes you down a different road.

But you remember that from the crisis in the storm, you will still get to the other side. Because Jesus is in the boat with you, you won’t sink.

If I’m not healed, still I will not bow down to the idolatry that Satan has won a victory, that the Kingdom of God has been weakened – as though the Kingdom of God just depended on me – that a church is going to be broken up.

I will not bow down to the idolatry that the enemy has won and that God has lost – that is the idol of these kind of projections.

That’s the idol Nebuchadnezzar set up. That’s the idol the devil wants to frame for us. It’s an idol of falsehood, an idol of accusation against me or the church or the Kingdom of God; it’s an idol that God is impotent, incompetent and He’s not a good God, that He’s a cosmic sadist.

All these are idols that will spring up in the “but if not” scenario. I will not bow down to it because they are false. They are false.

So “but if not”, I am still safe in God’s hands and I will get over to the other side because Jesus is in the boat with me.

How would you like people to pray for you?

Here’s my humble request and desire: If you can join me in this journey, I would love it and I would value it so much if each of you could become an ecosystem of personal, contagious faith for me.

What I mean is that you rise up in prayer and take authority and rebuke the spirit of death and cancer, rebuke the spirit of infirmity and believe for God’s miracles for me to be healed.

But as you do so, as the months flow, you will find people coming to you with all sorts of despair, fear, anxiety, hopelessness and a sense of like: “Wow, things are getting from bad to worse.”

The more of this kind of news you absorb, your faith will begin to dive.

Reverse it. Speak to them and say: “But God is the God of miracles, God is the God of hope, God is a God who can do the impossible. We are believing Pastor Philip to be healed.”

So you become a contagious ecosystem of faith. And where possible, say: “Let’s pray together, even a short prayer. Pray for God to strengthen him at this time and to continue healing him in this time.”

As you do so, two things will happen. Number one, you will hear your own mouth speak it, your spirit will hear it, your faith rises and is sustained.

Secondly, you will become contagious at reaching out to maybe people I can never reach out to or touch or know, who are still praying for me.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Our God is good. He is in control and He has your life in His hands. So always know that you are highly favoured, greatly blessed and deeply loved.

Watch the full Let’s Get Real Malaysia episode on Ps Dr Philip Lyn here.

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The post “God, I do not fully know why, but I trust You”: Ps Dr Philip Lyn of Skyline SIB on his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis appeared first on Salt&Light.