The Works of God

Desiring God is sponsoring a conference on November 8, The Works of God: God’s Good Design in Disability.  I hope you will consider coming!

The easy answer as to why a conference on disability and the Bible is that God has a lot to say on the subject in his book – for his glory and for our good – and that it impacts a lot of people – more than 1 billion people around the world.

It will be like none I’ve experienced or seen, but one I’ve longed to see for quite some time.  The emphasis will be on God’s sovereignty over disability, suffering and even death.

It will be full of Bible.  Each of the speakers takes God’s word very seriously for the sake of their own joy.

If you’ve ever searched for sermons or conference messages on disability and the Bible, you already know there’s a lot of bad stuff out there.  It will be good to have more edifying, God-centered materials available and accessible to people searching for the truth.

And with this conference, Desiring God and Bethlehem are getting into the stream that is growing on this issue of disability in ways that make my heart beat faster in anticipation about what God might be doing.

So, I hope you will come!

And if you would, please pray for me as I prepare a series of blog postings for the Desiring God blog.  I want to encourage people who normally would pass on this subject of disability to see that this conference is also for them.

That isn’t a complaint (thanks be to God for changing my heart on that one! I didn’t work very hard to kill the sin of bitterness for a long time). There are many people who do not see this as important for their churches simply because they don’t see it every day like we do.  But just from demographics alone, we know that every pastor and church leader will eventually have families like ours in front of them.  

I want them to be ready and full of anticipation about what God might be pleased to do when he brings those who are different because of disability into their churches.  Maybe some will even be called to do incredible things for the sake of those this culture believes should not exist at all.

So I would be grateful for your prayers for my writing, and for the Holy Spirit to do a marvelous work in bringing many to Bethlehem’s North Campus this fall!