As you can see, Paul was not impressed.  At least we know he isn’t tempted to pride when people talk about him!

It’s nice that he’s so comfortable with Susan, who serves as his aid at church.  She is a great blessing to us.

If you don’t know about this book, I cannot endorse it highly enough for the preciousness of the truths on every page and the beauty of God’s children with disabilities on display.

Here’s Pastor John’s endorsement:

I’m often asked how I respond as a Christian and as a pastor to calamities in the world . . . and I try to give my answers from the Bible. Often these questions become very personal because a child is born who isn’t as whole as the other children, and the parents don’t even know how to talk about it. It’s like a calamity in their hearts at first, and yet they love this child. I think the answer I’m going to give from now on is just to take this book, Just the Way I Am, and just give it to people.

You can watch his video endorsement here.

Please, spread the word!

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Psalm 56:8

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:16

What a comfort, God’s book includes every hardship in our days, and every tear is recorded. We are entirely known by God.

And that is good news because of who God is and what he does:

You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. Psalm 119:68

He and I see a common happy consequence of disability ministry – people who get involved frequently feel blessed at the relationships they develop with the children with disabilities. Some who were motivated to get involved by a sense of pity or obligation have their entire perspectives changed and realize they are actually pursuing their own joy in mutually beneficial acts of love in these relationships.

I’m going to try to help people see that joy tomorrow night at Bethlehem’s Wednesday Connection, which begins about 6:15 p.m. There are hard things to talk about as well: abortion, infanticide, abuse. But the emphasis will be on God and his extraordinary goodness in all things for his glory and for our joy.

If you are in the Twin Cities, it would be great to see you and it would encourage others to see that there are a lot of us out there experiencing disability. It will be at Bethlehem’s Downtown Campus.

And please pray that God would keep me faithful to God’s word and helpful to our cause to let everyone know God is sovereign over hard things like disability.

In just the past 10 days, two different men let me know of two different babies who will be given the chance to be born.  In both cases, the parents had discovered their unborn babies have significant physical issues.

Please, do what these men did – when someone is struggling, tell them the truth of God’s extraordinary power and grace and mercy, that he will give them strength, that the peace of God does surpass understanding and does guard our hearts in Christ Jesus!

And there will be great sorrow.  We all know that.  This will, in all likelihood, be the most difficult thing these parents will ever do.  Yet, we know what the final outcome is:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV

The two men who shared these stories are friends of mine, and I am grateful to God beyond words for their desire to serve these families with the truth.  I don’t know the fathers of the babies, but I hope someday I’ll have the chance to meet them and thank them for trusting Jesus with their future children, when the world says it is foolish and avoidable.

Now, may God grant us the gift of saving some more.

For 39 years we’ve lived with the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade.

But it won’t last.

Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts
that peoples labor merely for fire,
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
Habakkuk 2:12-14 ESV

It is coming.  Let’s tell people about Jesus so they are happy, free and not condemned when Jesus himself makes ‘all things new’ (Revelation 21:5):

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:1-2 ESV

They don’t look like radicals, do they?

God has made Craig and Susan (on the left) into pretty amazing people.

Their story is interesting.  The way they tell it, they were good-hearted, nice church people – then God moved on them to change their lives in ways they never could have expected.

Susan started a program to serve young mothers a few years ago – they’ve served more than 1,500 women and children!  All with volunteers and all with donations of clothes and baby items.  And every woman hears the gospel.  Here’s a five minute video that tells the story much better than I can.

Maybe the most telling comment is this one from Susan: A few years ago all my friends were basically like me.  Now my best friends have criminal records and tattoos!

They moved across the street from this ministry, which is located in a poor part of town.  God planted more dreams, and Craig responded in faith.  Most men don’t consider a radical shift from a professional career into the ministry at his age, but that’s what he’s doing.

They aren’t ‘nice’ people at all – joy-filled, hospitable, smart, kind, hard working – but not nice.  There is a tenacious clinging to Jesus for joy that is special.   Satan knows how dangerous they are.

So, I’m going to happily hang out with them for a few hours as they celebrate the launching of their new church that Craig will be leading.

Then I’ll drive down to Bend to spend time with more dangerous people.  Justin (the fellow on the right above) gave up a good business to work full-time on The Elisha Foundation, which is entirely dedicated to making Jesus known to families like ours through retreats, respite nights, and reaching out beyond the boundaries of the United States.  My family has experienced their God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled hospitality – as have dozens of others.  This kind of pouring out of one’s life – looking the suffering of disability squarely in the eye and proclaiming the sovereignty and goodness of God – isn’t easy or simply.  But it is wonderful to experience.

I’m grateful to God for these people and how he has made them and sustains them.  I’m grateful to God for my wife’s generosity in releasing me for these three days as that is no simple thing either.  And I’m grateful to God for Desiring God posting (Lord willing) Pastor John’s message on Monday, as I won’t be in Minnesota to hear him deliver his annual pro-life message which God has used to change how I think about unborn life and the goodness and sovereignty of God.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!

Psalm 8:2-5 NASB

Some argue that rationality and self-awareness are necessary for a human being to be considered a person.  That leaves out all kinds of people with certain kinds of disabilities.

Pastor John points out something a little different – human dignity is not granted based on rationality, but granted by the one who created them!  And though this is not specifically about little ones with disabilities, the connection is clearly evident:

Why is it that what comes out of the mouth of these little humans has such strength that it can overcome the enemies of God? I think the answer is, at least in part, given by verse 5—these little ones are made by God. Job said in Job 31:15, “Did not he who made me in the womb make him [my servant], and the same one fashion us in the womb?” Little infants and sucking babes are each made by God in the womb.

Moreover they are made in the womb, like no other being, a little less than the angels, and they are made in the womb by God and crowned with glory and majesty. In other words, their supreme place in creation under God (or the angels) is so profound even at the stage of being sucklings that when they open their mouth to cry or to coo or to babble as a human being, they are bearing witness to their unspeakable dignity in creation and therefore to the majesty of God’s name in all the earth. God does not wait until a sucking babe is rational and independent to ascribe to him the glory and majesty of verse 5—he doesn’t have to be a NASA scientist. When the suckling opens his mouth, God is praised, strength is established by the sheer truth that a human creation in the image of the majestic God is here.

Let all the adversaries of God take note and tremble. If they treat God’s supreme creation with contempt, they will lose. They will be silenced.

And so I appeal to you, do not join with the adversaries of God in killing unborn children or scorning any race of human beings. Because the truth of this text stands sure: You cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating his supreme creation with contempt.

John Piper, What Is Man?, delivered January 16, 1994.

The first success wasn’t easy or pretty.  Dianne had to work carefully to get the pill positioned in such a way as to encourage him to swallow, without at the same time getting bitten.  He may not chew anything, but his teeth work just fine.

He managed to work it out of his mouth a couple of times.  Then he swallowed.

We rejoice in small victories like that, especially when the medicines in those pills might actually help him!  We don’t take too much for granted with him.  And we long for it to be better for him, and for us.

For some reason, that reminded me of Pastor John’s closing to Momentary Marriage.  This investment in Paul is worthwhile because God made him and gave him to us as he is.  But it also isn’t going to last for very long.

So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

Very soon the shadow will give way to Reality. The partial will pass into the Perfect. The foretaste will lead to the Banquet. The troubled path will end in Paradise. A hundred candle-lit evenings will come to their consummation in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And this momentary marriage will be swallowed up by Life. Christ will be all and in all. And the purpose of marriage will be complete.

To that end may God give us eyes to see what matters most in this life. May the Holy Spirit, whom he sends, make his crucified and risen Son the supreme Treasure of our lives. And may that Treasure so satisfy our souls that the root of every marriage-destroying impulse is severed. And may the marriage-watching world be captivated by the covenant-keeping love of Christ.

John Piper, This Momentary Marriage, p. 178.

And it makes me tremble to consider what evil I’m still clinging to that will be considered shameful in a hundred years.

Thankfully, J.C. Ryle gave me a shot of something strong and good and pure in the midst of a life that ‘may be weak, sickly, unhealthy, painful . . .”:

Faith is life. How great the blessing! Who can describe or realize the gulf between life and death? “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” (Eccles. ix. 4.)

And yet life may be weak, sickly, unhealthy, painful, trying, anxious, weary, burdensome, joyless, smileless to the very end. Assurance is more than life. It is health, strength, power, vigour, activity, energy, manliness, beauty. . .

Blessed, thrice blessed are they that believe! They are safe. They are washed. They are justified. They are beyond the power of hell. Satan, with all his malice, shall never pluck them out of Christ’s hand.

But he that has assurance does far better–sees more, feels more, knows more, enjoys more, has more days like those spoken of in Deuteronomy, even “the days of heaven upon the earth.” (Deut. xi. 21.)

J.C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, p. 190.

The argument from those who promote aborting unborn children with disabilities is that the parents don’t want the children to suffer and the parents themselves don’t want to suffer through their children’s suffering.  Somehow, this prior knowledge of suffering grants the right to rid ourselves of it, no matter the cost to a little human being.

Jesus had prior knowledge of his suffering, and he also had prior knowledge of something else:

. . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 ESV

Let us live in this knowledge – joy is coming!  God will help us endure to the end.