The Works of God

If you want to find out where someone lands on the sovereignty of God, try saying this out loud:  God gave me my cancer, for his glory and for my good.

You will not receive a neutral response to that statement.

On a monthly basis my wife visits her oncologist’s clinic so they can test samples of her blood and administer drugs and generally see how she’s doing.  And at various times during the year, she will have a PET scan, CT scan, bone scan and MRI.  Each of these scans allows her doctor to see her body in different ways, which lets her doctor know if her Stage IV breast cancer is active again.  So, 16 times a year, she is not just reminded of her cancer, but submits to other people’s invasive procedures.  It is a constant reminder in our household not to take the life of a wife and mother for granted.

But we would waste it if that is all we believed about cancer, or if that was the only good that we saw.

Dianne already knew that God was sovereign over all things, including her cancer, when she got her diagnosis in October 2004.  When Pastor John received his cancer news in 2006, he wrote about it in a very helpful way, made even better when David Powlison, who also was diagnosed with cancer in early 2006, added his commentary.

I recommend all 10 ways not to waste your cancer, or any disease or disability.  It can be found here at Desiring God’s website. Here is the first way:

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

John Piper:

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

David Powlison:

Recognizing his designing hand does not make you stoic or dishonest or artificially buoyant. Instead, the reality of God’s design elicits and channels your honest outcry to your one true Savior. God’s design invites honest speech, rather than silencing us into resignation. Consider the honesty of the Psalms, of King Hezekiah (Isaiah 38), of Habakkuk 3. These people are bluntly, believingly honest because they know that God is God and set their hopes in him. Psalm 28 teaches you passionate, direct prayer to God. He must hear you. He will hear you. He will continue to work in you and your situation. This outcry comes from your sense of need for help (28:1-2). Then name your particular troubles to God (28:3-5). You are free to personalize with your own particulars. Often in life’s ‘various trials’ (James 1:2), what you face does not exactly map on to the particulars that David or Jesus faced – but the dynamic of faith is the same. Having cast your cares on him who cares for you, then voice your joy (28:6-7): the God-given peace that is beyond understanding. Finally, because faith always works out into love, your personal need and joy will branch out into loving concern for others (28:8-9). Illness can sharpen your awareness of how thoroughly God has already and always been at work in every detail of your life.

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This is one of my favorite pictures with my two non-disabled boys, taken at Joni Camp near Detroit Lakes, MN in 2008.

They LOVED playing on the extra wheelchairs that were brought to camp.  They were completely unafraid to try them out, attempted wheelchair basketball and baseball, and appreciated the skill some of the campers had in using the chairs.

And I thought it was good for them (and for me) to understand how valuable the chairs are for those who need them.  

Why do I bring that up now, as the snow flies in Minnesota?

I was reading a religious denomination’s suggestions for starting a disability ministry, and it included introducing people to wheelchairs – exactly what happened above at Joni Camp for me and my boys.

Yet their suggestions struck me as more likely to cause harm than good.  Tomorrow I’ll share their specific suggestion, and why I thought it worked at Joni Camp but is generally really bad advice.

Do you have a story about how you learned about disability or adaptations in ways that were helpful and positive?

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God has used certain couples in our lives to encourage us and build us up as a family to keep treasuring and trusting Jesus.  Jan and Mark Lacher are such a couple.  You might be familiar with Jan as she wrote the very helpful Creations of God Impacted by Disability that can found in our resource library.

Recently Jan wrote to me another reason why we praise God for Bethlehem and its leadership.  With her permission, I’ve included most of that email of a couple weeks ago below.

To give context, Jan and Mark attend Bethlehem’s North Campus with their four children.  Michael is their youngest and lives with significant disabilities. In addition to the time she has spent in hospitals with Michael, Jan has also spent time there as a nurse.

This past Sunday, Mark and I were talking to Jon Grano (Bethlehem’s Pastor for Operations) about handicap decals being placed on the floor in areas that could be designated for wheel chairs.  While the north site is extremely accessible, visibility is not great if you are in the middle of a back row in a wheel chair as (a congregant with a disability) was this past Sunday.

As Jon, Mark, and I were talking, Pastor John was leaving and walked down our aisle.   (more…)

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