Quantity vs. Quality of Life

When you’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness, you think more soberly about “numbering your days” (Ps. 90:12). Chemo/radiation treatments prescribed for cancer patients are not intended to cure, but to extend life. But there’s a downside: these can cause considerable discomfort! (Thank God, mine has been minimal!) Thus, each person, must consider how much pain he is willing to endure to extend “quantity of life” at the expense of “quality of life.”
 
Now here is a spiritual analogy that just screams for a spot on this blog. The Greek word in the phrase “abundant life,” zoe, means a different “quality of life” than bios. Paul says if we’re not “suffering the loss of all things,” we are not going to “gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). That is, to have the quality of life Christ wants to give us (John 5:21), we must endure some discomfort. But don't worry; our Great Physician will never prescribe treatments that would cause more discomfort than we can bare.