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Archive for May, 2012

This is very cool! But. . .

Posted in News on May 11, 2012| 1 Comment »

I really enjoyed this story about Claire Lomas who took 16 days to complete the London Marathon.  Why 16 days?  She’s paralyzed!  And she was using bionic suit!  How great is that!

Just think about the other new things that are coming to help equip people with disabilities (and probably everyone else) for their service to the world for God’s glory!

But before we get too excited about how great we are in making things, we should remember that what’s hard or even impossible for us is really, really easy for God:

And great crowds came to (Jesus), bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:30-31 ESV)

Someday God will make ‘all things new’ (Revelation 21:5) without breaking a sweat.  Until then, it is good to apply time, energy and intellect to things that serve people, like bionic suits, for God’s glory and for their good.

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“Here’s where our disability ministry just helps us so much. . .” Dr. Jason Meyer

Posted in Sermons on May 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A two-minute excerpt from Dr. Jason Meyer’s sermon of May 5, 2012:

You can download or watch the entire sermon here.

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Make much of God and encourage your pastor: tell your story

Posted in commentary, Special Events on May 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

8:00 a.m. update: Larissa Murphy’s first blog post, Why We Got Married, has been posted at Desiring God and is terrific.  Please read it and be blessed by a young couple who are not wasting their lives.

In case you haven’t seen Ian and Larissa’s story yet, it is below.  Larissa is also writing on the Desiring God blog several times this week.  Though I haven’t seen those posts yet, I am looking forward to learning more of their story.  They will be coming to the Desiring God conference, The Works of God: God’s Good Design in Disability, this fall as well.

Their testimony is incredible, and I’m glad the video has already been shared thousands and thousands of times.  But I’ve found myself chewing on one line that Pastor John included in his introduction to the video:

The most meaningful testimonies I receive are when people tell me that it was a vision of the sovereignty and goodness of God that got them through the most difficult times of their life.

“Most meaningful” – that sounds like these types of testimonies are of particular encouragement, a special kind of gift from God to a man called to make much of God over everything else.

I love Pastor John’s books and his conferences, but it has been his preaching which God has used to have the greatest impact on my life.  His persistent pointing to God’s sovereignty and his goodness as articulated in God’s word has changed everything in our family.

So it is really easy for me to say, ‘yes! This vision of the sovereignty and goodness of God HAS gotten me through incredibly difficult times in my life. And I know he is entirely capable of doing everything he has promised he will do, for his glory and for my good. He is always good, always right, always wise, always just, always purposeful – even including disease and disability.’

Ian and Larissa’s story is their unique story of God’s sovereignty and goodness, and it is an incredible one.

Your story is just as unique and incredible, if you have been called by God into faith in Jesus Christ!  Tell it today, do it in ways that make much of God, and encourage the ones who lead us that their work is not in vain but is being used by God in extraordinary ways.

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“The suffering of Christ is a call for a certain mind-set toward suffering. . .” John Piper

Posted in Quotes on May 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Though pointed toward cross-cultural missions, this quote from Pastor John’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad, is applicable to any of us called to persevere through suffering for the sake of Christ and for others:

The suffering of Christ is a call for a certain mind-set toward suffering, namely, that it is normal and that the path of love and missions will often require it.

Thus, Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).

Suffering with Christ is not strange; it is your calling, your vocation.

John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, p. 78.

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“You do all things well.” Pastor Josh McPherson

Posted in Sermons on May 7, 2012| 1 Comment »

I am very grateful to Justin Tayor for pointing to these videos from Josh McPherson, Pastor of Grace Covenant Church, who just welcomed his fourth child and second with disabilities into the world.

Josh and I corresponded earlier this year.  I’m grateful to God for men like him!  One thing I’m grateful for is in how he prepares his people for suffering through his own experiences.  For example, he shared with them this past January what he wrote in his journal just before they learned their son, Gideon, would also live with Spina Bifida:

“We will entrust ourselves into your hands. We love you Father. Thanks for being good, and for being in control. There is nothing sweeter, nor brings more comfort, than this. You do all things well.”

45 minutes after writing those words, I heard the words, for the second time in my life, “Spina Bifida”, and nothing about what I wrote changed. Will it be hard in the days to come? Most definitely. Has it changed our family forever? Completely. Is there pain? Absolutely. Is there heartache? Certainly. But oh how much more quickly the sun broke through the clouds this time, for we knew that there was design in this suffering, and that brings tremendous hope.

The two minute introduction below is amazing.  Then read or watch the entire sermon and feel the weight of Paul’s description of the Christian life in this man’s home, “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10).”  I was tremendously blessed and encouraged by it!

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The suffering of Jesus Christ will yield its fruit: an end to suffering

Posted in Quotes on May 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Paragraph formatting is mine:

God is not needy; we are.

God is not dependent on us, but we are helpless without him.

God determines the future, and therefore we can be confident that his suffering for us in Jesus Christ will yield the promised fruit: everlasting peace in a world where suffering is no more and God will be all in all.

Michael Horton, A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering, p. 68.

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A gift and a greater gift

Posted in News on May 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

George Will offered a great gift to families like ours when he wrote about his son with Down syndrome this past week:

He, however, with an underdeveloped entitlement mentality, has been equable about life’s sometimes careless allocation of equity. Perhaps this is partly because, given the nature of Down syndrome, neither he nor his parents have any tormenting sense of what might have been. Down syndrome did not alter the trajectory of his life; Jon was Jon from conception on.

I’m grateful God placed Jon Will into a family that includes a man who is read in newspapers and watched on television all over the world.  George Will has been a helpful voice for those living with disabilities.

But Justin Taylor, on his blog, offered a greater gift in his comments on George Will’s article:

In the fight for human dignity—which includes caring for the unborn, caring for orphans, caring for those with disabilities—we need to see hearts changed by the gospel and laws changed in the land. But we also need a cultural of encouragement for those who are in need, and more stories like this can only help.

And I pray that George Will, who is an agnostic, will recognize that the only basis for human dignity is our equality before our Creator, who made each of us in his image, and that redemption can only be found in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.

I see Justin’s response as the greater gift for two reasons:

  1. Justin points to Jesus.  That is so much more important than anything else anyone has to say about disability or any other topic.
  2. Justin doesn’t have to point to disability, but he has come back to it time and again over the years.  His is a clear, consistent, Biblical call for the entire church, not just those of us directly impacted, to see this issue as important.  Those of us who live with this as a daily issue in our families owe men like him a great debt for his service.

God knows what he is doing, and I am grateful to God for Justin Taylor’s voice on this issue, for God’s glory and for our good.

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Tell your pastors to come with you!

Posted in News, Special Events on May 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Desiring God’s conference on disability is only six months away!

Yes, I know, the entire summer is still before us.  But I also know it will take time for some of you to convince your church leadership that this conference is for them as well.

And this may sound funny since I attend and am very grateful for my ‘big’ church, but I’m REALLY praying for many of two particular kinds of pastors to attend: pastors from small churches, and pastor/fathers of disabled children.  One of my favorite times of year is the annual Desiring God Conference for Pastors because I get to see and spend some time with pastors who are on the front lines, often by themselves (with their wives), doing some great and hard work.  I love those men.

And the ones living in the dual fishbowls of the pastorate and raising a child with a disability – they are my heroes.

On Wednesday the Desiring God team let me post six reasons why pastors should attend at the Desiring God blog.  Please use these if you find them useful.  Even better, add your own reasons in the comments below!

Let’s make this conference look so attractive and enriching for church leaders to attend that suddenly our little niche issue of disability doesn’t feel so niche after all.

God will get the glory, and we will get the joy!

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Very grateful for reminders about the bigness of God

Posted in Scripture on May 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A great reminder for me that:

  1. God made everything, including those who live with disabilities.
  2. Human beings foolishly devise evil plans against God that won’t stand.
  3. God can do and will do everything he has always intended to do.
  4. We can trust God to respond to threats (of all kinds) and we can continue to speak the word with boldness.

I get that in just a few verses from Acts 4:22-30:

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, (point one) “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

(Point two) “‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, (point three) to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, (point 4) look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:23-30 ESV)

God is purposeful and glorious in all his ways.  Thank you, Lord, for Jesus!

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“Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ.” John Piper

Posted in Quotes on May 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’m reading a 30-year-old book on infanticide and the evil it summarizes over human history is mind-boggling and devastating.  It doesn’t appear we’ve made much progress in slowing it down.

God is still sovereign.  Jesus is still more glorious than anything.  Evil is not in charge here.

From Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ by John Piper, pp. 50-51:

Four Things Never to Do with Evil

  1. Never despair that this evil world is out of God’s control. “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).
  2. Never give in to the sense that because of seemingly random evil, life is absurd and meaningless. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:33, 36).
  3. Never yield to the thought that God sins or is ever unjust or unrighteous in the way he governs the universe. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways” (Ps. 145:17).
  4. Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ. If you trust him with your life, you are in Christ. Never doubt that all the evil that befalls you—even if it takes your life—is God’s loving, purifying, saving, fatherly discipline. It is not an expression of his punishment in wrath. That wrath fell on Jesus Christ our substitute (Gal. 3:13; Rom. 8:3). Only mercy comes to us from God, not wrath, if we are his children through faith in Jesus. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6).

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