Tag: Church

God Is Not Handicapped

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Once upon a time Jesus healed a guy with a withered arm. I think I remember studying about that boy and getting the idea it was some kind of farming mishap that rendered his arm useless. The word used in that account means shriveled or twisted up bad.

If you go further back in the Bible you encounter a time when God Himself poses the question, “Does My arm look withered to you?” It was the prophet Isaiah who spoke for God in that instance, I believe. Correct me if I’m wrong; I won’t even google it.

Which brings me to the third (of four) attributions in this “God Is Not…” series of posts. If you’re new to me and are jumping in midstream, I’m taking a few breaths as I prepare to offer a vision statement for this new year. It’s not that I’m doing a drum roll before the ta-da! It’s nothing so dramatic, I assure you. In fact (I’ll go ahead and let you in on it), the ‘word’ I’ve got marinating in my spirit won’t catch you off-guard, yea, it might even be borderline anticlimactic. You might even demand your money back. Wait…

These posts are not a build-up to a crescendo but more of the framing around the message itself. Flying buttresses, if you will. If I’m truly seeing something that presents a new set of challenges for the church in the coming year, then, well, we’re going to need to know some things about God in the midst of the fallout.

  1. GOD IS NOT NERVOUS
  2. GOD IS NOT SILENT

  3. GOD IS NOT HANDICAPPED

Well, now I understand something about this. It’s right in my wheelhouse. In nearly nine years of blogging and thirty-three years of speaking out of my life of disability I’ve shared and shared ad nauseum on what my life’s been like as a paralyzed man. There’s not a lot more I can say, but, then again, there’s always a testimony waiting to happen. So…let me testify.

Disability has its privileges. Primo parking spaces, roomier hotel accommodations, cool equipment, wheelchairs that go vroom, and the enviable privilege of being ushered to the front of the line at Disney World. Persons with disability are also fairly patient people; indeed, we have to be. I can also testify that a handicap can strengthen a marriage as you tend to overemphasize communication to compensate for lack in other departments. Have I told you how much I love being married to Sandy?

Moving on.

There are also some drawbacks to this life. My particular infirmity can be a b-word an awful lot of the time. I’ll just invite you to read more about my situation here and here and let that suffice.

There’s another strike against persons with disability, an issue I’m loathe to mention but must. By and large we are pretty self-absorbed people. We are often known to make it about us.

I’m going to segue here by making a bold assessment. The church is entirely too self-absorbed. There’s a lot of good – yes – and I love being a part of her. She’s doing enviable work, has many strengths, and is making strong inroads with regard to gospel penetration.

"But I have somewhat against thee," Jesus says.

She’s self-absorbed because she’s handicapped. She needs to make it about her because she’s weak and needy and not fully living out of the joy and strength of her Lord. Mind you, I’m not bashing. I love her. I’m part of her. I’m also weak and needy and self-absorbed, and I think our only hope to overcome is severe testing and refining.

Isaiah was God’s man to a people paralyzed by current events. The Jews living in the 8th century B.C. seemed surprised when they were being raided and carted off by Assyria. God, where are You? Why aren’t You doing something? Have You forgotten about us? They couldn’t believe what hit them – and when it did, they set to blaming God. It was His fault. He let it happen.

Let me tell you about Assyria. It’s capital was Ninevah – yeah, that Ninevah. Never had a world power devised such forms of brutality and torture as the Assyrians. They loved putting out eyes, severing body parts and skinning their prisoners alive. Conquests were staked to the ground and died of starvation and dehydration while exposed to the Middle Eastern sun. Women and children were not immune. Suddenly, Israel finds itself being handed over to these savages and they cried bitterly against their God.

Let me pick up this part of the story straight out of Isaiah’s record:

Isaiah 40:26-28 (NLT)
Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.

Did you see that? My predicament. My rights. Me, my, mine. When the focus is leveled at myself and my surroundings I begin to lose hope and look for someone to blame for my situation. Guess who gets the brunt?

God, don’t You love me?

Am I nothing to You?

Don’t You care?

On the heels of this despairing conversation is a promise: YOU WILL MOUNT UP ON EAGLE’S WINGS. But – wait – the promise is for those who “wait” on God. The word in the original gives the picture of twine being twisted into a sturdy rope; the more strings you add the greater the rope’s unbreakable strength. He’s showing us if we wrap our hearts – our hope, our faith – with His purposes, we will soar while the rest are earth-bound. We will have His limitless energy to overcome!

Is He handicapped by the enemy? Are His purposes thwarted?

Is His arm withered?

Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
AND HIS ARM RULES FOR HIM!
Isaiah 40:10

He’s not handicapped, we are. We need healing. But, praise God, He’s coming with wings, with legs and with zeal to overcome against our Assyria. Isaiah 40:31 isn’t ‘sweet bye and bye’ stuff. It’s for today, tomorrow and whatever’s coming.

Amen.

Next Up: “God Is Not…Finished”

• • • •

Photo Cred: Michelangelo’s anatomical study of the human arm.

5 Things Jesus Never Said

Have you ever wondered if the Lord leans over to the Father and laments, “I wish My Church would stop putting words in My mouth”?

“Few people have been misquoted as often as Jesus,” says Michael Hidalgo. It’s easy to say stuff and attribute it to people when they’re not around. Such a ploy helps lends credibility to the speaker, or enables them to manipulate the listener or even, at times, pass the buck.

“I didn’t say it, they did.”

No wonder the followers of Jesus love this strategy. It’s been shaping and honing the Church for generations.

At the end of this post I’d love it if you’d contribute to my list by adding one – or a few – of your own.

Here’s mine:

  1. God will never give you more than you can bear

    2. Why, of course He will. And He’ll do it for the very good reason that He’s after your trust. He wants you to fall under the weight of life so you’ll turn your eyes upward and cry, “Lord, I can’t but You can!”

    Lord, I believe (you are able)! Help my unbelief ( because this is so hard)!

    He thrives on being your Savior. Rescuing you never tires Him out. He loves being a Good Father to you and your responding to Him in faith. He gets a kick out of it.

  2. Pray this prayer and you’ll go to heaven

    3. Sorry. Not in there. The essence of saving faith is – as we just saw – ongoing faith and certain hope in Christ’s saving Love. When the New Testament addresses “faith” or “belief” (πιστεύω) in the context of being saved, it doesn’t quantify it as a thing but as a repetitive condition of the heart.

    Sometimes such faith looks like: “Lord, I’ve done it again. I’m such a screw up! Help me out of this…I turn to You!” Sometimes it’s little more than, “I’m sorry.” At times, “I can’t do this without You!” resonates as mustard-seed faith to Him.

    Yes, I know. Faith is in a Person, not an idea or spiritual mirage. The gravitational pull of Saving Faith is in Jesus the Christ, in His finished work and in His ongoing ministry of sustaining grace, sanctification and the perfecting of our weak faith.

    And yes, my own faith story began with a crisis of belief where I cried out for Him to save me – I may have even prayed the classic “sinner’s prayer”* – but my salvation from bondage to sin and self-godship to Christ and His Life is due to a participial love affair. His Love toward me is exceedingly more perfect than mine to Him, but He knows My heart. And He’s merciful and intimately close to screw-ups who turn to Him.

  3. God helps those who help themselves

    4. I think this ones on everybody’s list. You can find its origins in Aesop’s Fables, a variant in the Quran (13:11) and in a Benjamin Franklin attribution, but it’s not in scripture. So…moving on.

    Actually, God would say…

    Yikes, be careful here, Scotty-boy…

    God (might) say:

    I help those who come to the end of themselves.

    Boom.

  4. You need more faith to be healed

    5. Oh boy, have I – a paraplegic – heard this, almost as much as Romans 8:28 (which is true, but still) from various well-meaning saints in 33 years of disability.

    When the disciples were feeling convicted about a certain teaching, they responded with “We need more faith for this, Lord!” He didn’t say, “You’re right fellas.” Instead He told them, in essence, to act on what they knew and believed and they’d grow into this too. When it comes to healing, sometimes He healed based on the afflicted person’s (weak) faith, sometimes when He saw (hopeful) faith in others, and sometimes just ‘cuz.

    Who decides how much faith is enough? Not you, not me. So stop that nonsense and putting obligations on people when Jesus died and rose again to free us from all that!

    He heals…when He’s ready. And when He’s ready, I’ll be ready.

    Then, lastly,

    And I’ll probably lose some followers here, but it’s worth taking a shot.

    Okay, here goes.

    Jesus also never said – or implied:

  5. The Republican Party will solve all your nation’s ills

    6. Well, obviously He didn’t reference a political party that wouldn’t come into being for another eighteen or nineteen hundred years yet, but still.

    The hope of America is not a republican super-majority in Congress with a sitting president from the party of the elephant. I mean, I’d like those things because I’m a ‘steadfast conservative’ according to the recent Pew Research poll, but still.

    The hope of our nation is…are you ready to hear it? The hope for this country is for the Church inside her to be a true City on a Hill.

    What does that mean, you ask?

    The phrase is taken directly from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14. At first blush it’s important to know the “you” is plural and suggests that a “city” of unified (not uniform) followers of Christ will be noticed in its cultural setting by living by the law of love and spiritual liberty – with each other, and those outside their faith as well.

    When the Church in America practices righteous justice (for the poor, defenseless and innocent) and self-giving love to all, the nation will be blessed.

    Okay, off my soap box.

I saw where Scot McKnight made his own list over at Patheos and ended with, “Jesus didn’t say, ‘You are my friends if you do what I didn’t say…'”

Nice.

Don’t forget: use the comment box below to add to this list of Things Jesus DIDN’T Say. Comment now, comment often…and you might end up with a free book at the end of the month! (See sidebar at bottom)

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*Classic sinner’s prayer:

Dear Jesus, I know I’m a sinner and am deserving of hell because of my sins. But I know you died and rose again to save me, so I’m asking You to forgive my sins, come into my heart and save me, and take me to heaven when I die.

The main point I make with this is that saving faith is a relationship built on ongoing trust and belief, not in a prayer uttered once upon a time, but in a Person you believe is your Hope and Stay.