Getting Right with God Before the Diagnosis Comes

A friend told me recently about a woman I’ll call Ruth. She’s older now, and not long ago her doctors gave her a diagnosis with no ambiguity left in it: terminal cancer. There’s no second opinion that changes the outcome, no waiting to see. Separate from divine intervention, she knows that her days are numbered.

Here’s what struck me. Ruth used to go to church years back, before life pulled her away from it the way life does. But with that diagnosis sitting on her chest, she came back and got baptized last Sunday. When asked why, she didn’t give a theological speech. She said she wanted to “get right with Him.” Plain words, but they carry the whole weight of the Gospel in them. And her son—watching what his mother was walking through—was baptized that same morning, choosing to follow the same path toward Christ.

The Diagnosis No One Can Ignore

There’s a strange mercy in a terminal diagnosis, as odd as that sounds. It strips away the illusion that we have unlimited time. Ruth can’t pretend anymore that eternity is a someday conversation. The doctors made sure of that. She’s looking at an ending she can practically see the outline of, and it pushed her to do the one thing that actually matters before you die: get right with God.

Most of us don’t get that kind of clarity. We walk around assuming we’ve got decades left, that eternity can wait until we’re older, calmer, and more settled. But here’s the thing nobody wants to say out loud: none of us actually know. A car accident doesn’t send a diagnosis first. A heart doesn’t always warn you before it stops. Some of us have less time than Ruth does, and we don’t have a single scan to tell us so.

We’re All Terminal—We Just Don’t Have the Scan

Scripture doesn’t soften this. Every person carries a condition more serious than any cancer, and it’s called sin. It’s not treatable with chemotherapy, and it doesn’t respond to willpower or good intentions. Left alone, it has one destination.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 6:23]

And unlike Ruth’s cancer, this diagnosis doesn’t always come with symptoms you can feel. That’s what makes it so dangerous. You can look healthy, feel fine, have a good job and a good family and a good reputation, and still be carrying a condition that separates you from God. It doesn’t show up on any test doctors run.

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, [Hebrews 9:27]

That verse doesn’t leave much wiggle room. Death is appointed. It’s coming for every single one of us, and after it, there’s an accounting. Ruth’s doctors gave her a date range. The rest of us are just walking around without one, assuming that’s better. I’m not so sure it is.

The Danger of Feeling Fine

Solomon put it bluntly: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). We plan our calendars three months out like tomorrow is guaranteed collateral. It never has been. Ruth’s diagnosis forced her to stop pretending otherwise. The tragedy would be if the rest of us needed a diagnosis to do the same thing—and never got one in time.

I think about people I’ve known who put off dealing with God the way you’d put off a dentist appointment. Not today, not this season, maybe after the kids are grown, maybe after retirement. Then one day there’s no more “after.” The cancer they didn’t know they had—spiritually speaking—already ran its course. That’s the sober edge of this whole illustration. Ruth could see hers coming. Most people can’t see theirs at all.

A Mother’s Faith, A Son’s Decision

Now to the part of the story that gets me every time I think about it: the son. He watched his mother face her own mortality honestly, watched her choose to get right with Christ instead of hiding from what was coming. And something in that moved him to make the same decision, on the same morning, in the same water.

This is evangelism in its rawest, least programmed form. Nobody handed him a tract. Nobody sat him down for a formal presentation of the Gospel. He simply watched his mother’s life collide with eternity, and it was enough to make him ask the question for himself. That’s how influence works in families—we don’t always preach it, we live it, and the people watching us decide what to do with what they see.

But here’s where the story turns from encouraging to convicting: her faith couldn’t save him. His decision had to be his own. A parent’s baptism doesn’t transfer to a child. A mother’s relationship with Christ doesn’t cover her son by proximity. Scripture is clear that each person stands before God on their own account.

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. [Ezekiel 18:20]

That’s a hard truth for parents to recognize. You can pray for your children for decades, model faithfulness in front of them every single day, and still not be able to make the decision for them. You can point to the cure. You cannot take the medicine on someone else’s behalf. Ruth’s son had to walk into that water himself. Nobody could do it for him, not even the mother he loved.

Getting Right with Him Today

I keep coming back to Ruth’s phrase—”get right with Him”—because it’s so simple it almost sounds shallow. It isn’t. Getting right with God isn’t about cleaning yourself up first or waiting until you feel ready. It’s admitting the diagnosis is real, that sin has already done its damage, and that Jesus Christ is the only cure that actually works.

For he says, "In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. [2 Corinthians 6:2]

Now. Not after the scan comes back. Not after the season gets calmer. Ruth didn’t have the luxury of waiting, and in a strange way, that’s a mercy the rest of us can learn from without needing the same medical diagnosis. We don’t know our own timelines. We just know we have one.

So maybe the question isn’t whether you’re facing a terminal illness. Maybe it’s whether you’ve been living like you’re not going to die at all—like there’s always going to be more time to deal with God later. There isn’t a guarantee of that for any of us. Ruth knew it. Her son saw it and made his own choice. The invitation in front of you is the same one that was in front of them: get right with Him today.

“Now is the day of salvation.”