God bless you.

Within the next two weeks, I will have either a heart pump or a repaired back or both.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

When I first discovered 15 months ago that I had end-stage congestive heart

failure, a brain tumor and prostate cancer, I prayed for God to heal me instantly and

completely of all three.

Many of you Christian sisters and brothers joined me by prayerfully touching and

agreeing with me and the desires of my heart.

God blessed me first with the brain tumor being declared benign.

God blessed me again to put my prostate cancer in remission with the aid of

brachetherapy or the implantation of radiation seeds by Dr. Brian Moran of the Chicago

Prostate Cancer Center.

God also blessed me to retard the deterioration of my heart through additional

medications prescribed by Dr. Allen Anderson of the University of Chicago Medical

Center, where Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam has been the chief cardiac surgeons for years

It was Dr. Jeevanandam who performed a triple bypass on me Feb. 14, 2001.

When I was hospitalized 15 months ago, Dr. Jeevanandam suggested that I have

a Left-Ventricle Assist Device implanted as soon as possible because my mitral valve

and left ventricle were irreparably damaged and that my heart was not pumping blood

sufficiently and was getting progressively weaker.

I chose to keep praying and waiting for a cataclysmic healing of my heart, which

needed a heart transplant. My wife, daughters, sisters and brothers and close friends

asked to get the pump because it is said to be my best medical option to extending my

life until I can get a new heart.

After my first 10 days of vacation, where I have done mostly nothing but rest, the

signs now are clearer than ever that my failing heart needs help before my bad back.

I am already scheduled to undergo a back operation, specifically a lumbar laminectomy,

to be performed by Dr. Frederick Brown, neuro-surgeon at the University of Chicago

Medical Center, on Aug. 10.

For some seven months, severe stenosis issues in my lower back has kept me from

standing or walking for longer than a few minutes. Since Dr. Anderson has assured me

the back problem was not related to poor blood circulation, I decided to undergo the

back surgery first.

But painful aches, stiffness and occasional swelling in my fingers, feet, joints and

quick fatigue suggest to me that I might be better served having the heart surgery

first. That's why I am firing off an e-mail tp my doctors today asking their advice.

I will keep you posted as my fight continues.

God bless you.

God bless you.

I'd like to use this blog entry to share with you a comment from Elizabeth, one of my

recent blog readers, and my response to her.

Here is what she wrote:

"You so-called 'Christians' are contradictory. You claim not to be afraid to die, but yet you

fight tooth and nail to do anything to live another day longer, knowing full well, it's

useless. If you are such a believer, then why don't you stop all your treatment and leave it

in His hands?"

BANKS' RESPONSE: "Us Christians so contradictory" because we try to help

ourselves as well as believe in and pray to God?

You are so wrong and off-base, Elizabeth.

We know that God is all-powerful and that He has the whole world in His hands.

Right?

Well, maybe you don't believe that either. But we "so-called Christians" do.

We also believe that in God we live, move and have our being. At the same time, the

earth is the Lord's and the FULNESS thereof, the world and THEY that dwell therein.

Well, among "the FULNESS" of the world and among "THEY that dwell therein" are

doctors, lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, teachers, preachers, police, firemen,

bread, water, medicine, sun, rain, dirt, plows, seeds, etc. You name it.

Now, the final outcome of anything is in God's hands because He not only has the

last word, He is the Word. But when I'm hungry, I do my best to get some of that bread in

His hands to eat so that I won't starve to death.

Only the fool sits down in the middle of life and does not try to do anything to better

himself or to use the common sense that God has given him. That's why when my

drains are stopped up, I call the plumber. When I have an electrical problem, I call

the electrician. When my car breaks down, I call or take it to an auto mechanic. When

there is a fire in my house and I can't put it out by myself, I call the fire department. When

I'm sick, I seek the help of a doctor. When I have a legal problem, I seek a lawyer. And

when a criminal tries to invade my home, I call the police, if I have time to do so, or I try

to defend my family myself by any means necessary.

Now, the plumber, electrician, mechanic, fireman, doctor, lawyer, police and all the

other craftsman of human society are all part of the "FULNESS" of this world and "THEY

that dwell therein."

Just look at yourself, Elizabeth. You didn't leave criticizing us so-called Christians

"in God's hands." Neither did you leave this task in the hands of the devil, who is forever

a liar, a murderer and a false accuser of the brethren and wants us all dead.

Rather, propelled by your probable disbelief in God, and your apparent disrespect for

His redeemed, you took it upon yourself to use your eyes to read this blog, you used your

heart and mind to misjudge us "so-called Christians," and then you used your fingers to

e-mail me what I believe is an off-base criticism of "us Christians."

Well, Elizabeth, I don't know who you worship or if you worship anybody. But those of

us who worship God in spirit and in truth do know that it is at least common sense to do

our best and then trust God for the rest.

Yes, that's right. There's nothing wrong and everything right in us trying to use what

God has already given us before we ask Him to give us anything else.

And, yes, we "so-called Christians" are going to try to do all we can on our own

behalf to live as long and as well as we possibly can. But at the same time, we try to

take full advantage of God's invitation to ask so that it shall be given, to seek so that we

may find and to knock so that the door hall be opened unto us. We take full advantage

of His invitation for us to come unto Him when we labor and are heavy ladened so that

He will give us rest.

God bless you, Elizabeth, for being honest. But I invite and urge you also to seek

the Lord while He may be found and to call upon Him while He is so near. Most of all,

if you haven't done so, I urge you to confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and to

believe with your heart that He died on Calvary's cross one Friday for all your sins or

imperfections and shortcomings and then arose from the dead the following Sunday

morning with all power in heaven and earth given by God unto Him.

When you do those things, Elizabeth, you will be saved and will become one of us

"so-called Christians" where the joy of the Lord is your strength and where you will

bless the Lord at all times so that His praise shall continually be in your mouth.

God bless you.