The Works of God

The man featured yesterday on the cover of Just the Way I Am is Kempton Turner, a pastor at Bethlehem.  God has made him into a remarkable man.

God gave a special gift to my family, which is echoed by all the families with disabled children, when he called Kempton and Caryn and their children to Bethlehem over two years ago.  They are a joy-filled, God-centered couple who fill up our network of families with encouragement in the word and confidence in God.  I count it a privilege to know them.  And I recommend Caryn’s blog as well!

Pastor Kempton was interviewed last year on a local radio station regarding his multiply disabled son and the sovereignty of God.  That interview was included in this week’s Bethlehem Star, our weekly church e-newsletter.

You can read the entire article here.

Here is an excerpt:

So, how are you able to hold up in the midst of such a heavy and painful and life-long trial?
We are not able to “hold up.” We are “held up” by the God of Isaiah 41:10 who says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Jesus, our Creator-Savior, who “holds all things together,” holds us up “by the word of his power”! (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3). Are we sometimes depressed and discouraged? Yes. But we preach the Word to ourselves, “Soul, hope in God!” (Psalm 42:5–6) and God’s word produces a happy hope in our hearts again and again, even unto this day.

So God allowed this (his son to be born with disabilities)? 
No, God did it, not just allowed it. The Bible says so in passages like Exodus 4:11, Psalm 139:13, and John 9:3. It was God’s good and purposeful design to create Christian just the way he is for our good and His glory.

Now that’s the way to talk about God!

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So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:26-27 ESV)

A very, very fast man has that verse tattooed on his back.  A man fast enough to qualify for the Olympics.

A man without legs.

Oscar Pistorius has already won Olympic gold medals, in the 100m, 200m (twice) and 400m.  All were won in the 2004 and 2008 Paralympics.

This year he has qualified for the Olympics – something never before accomplished by a person with his disability – and  he will run the 400m and 4x400m relay for South Africa.

Not only did he have to run on his prosthetic legs fast enough to qualify, four years ago he had to fight a court battle with the International Association of Athletic Federations that said his prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage!  Imagine that – a man with no legs having an unfair athletic advantage.  The Court of Arbitration for Sport overruled that decision after doing a more thorough investigation of his prosthetics.  In other words, they determined he was fast because he was fast, and not because he had some technological advantage.

He is not likely to medal; his times qualify him for the Olympics, but he’s not top three fast.  But he’s going to attempt to defend his medals at the London Paralympics next month.

Because he’s so unusual an athlete, thousands of articles have been written about him.  And it appears that hundreds of those articles have referenced that tattoo.

I wonder how God has used the scripture reference in such an usual way to bring others to himself?  Someday we’ll know.

In the meantime, I’m rooting for a South African double amputee to do well at the Olympics, for God’s glory and in recognition that disability is not the same thing as being dead.

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Thank you to Jan Lacher for pointing me to this story.

Wouldn’t it be great if a national politician said something like this?

I do not understand why the unborn are unprotected, permitting them to be aborted, because of the fact that they have some kind of handicap or deformity.

A politician did say it!  Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón made that statement Sunday in the Spanish newspaper La Razón.

I don’t understand it either!  And he can actually do something about it.

I know only a little about Spanish regulations concerning abortion, nor do I have any idea if the current party in power will actually act on protections for unborn children with disabilities.

But it was encouraging to see that a country that liberalized its laws as recently as 2010 would have a national leader openly say change was needed to specifically protect unborn children with disabilities.

And as we approach the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision in the United States next year, it was a good reminder to me to pray for our leaders, all of them, that God would let them see that we should welcome, protect and nurture our vulnerable little ones with disabilities, not destroy them simply because we can.

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It appears the United States Senate will not be considering the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities by July 26.  If you haven’t been following that process, there’s a very succinct summary here of the two positions.

I first read the Convention when President Obama proposed its ratification in 2009. It has a great deal of ‘feel good’ language in it.  But it also has elements that are disturbing beyond what is in the summary above.

There are also some good things in it, like Article 10 – Right to Life:

States Parties reaffirm that every human being has the inherent right to life and shall take all necessary measures to ensure its effective enjoyment by persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others.

If only that could be true that every government would affirm (I’m not sure why they use the term ‘reaffirm’) an inherent right to life for people with disabilities!

But reading the list of countries that have affirmed the Convention demonstrates that this document has no teeth, regardless of whether it is a good idea or not.  The list includes countries found in routine violation of human rights, such as Cuba (ratified in 2007) and China (ratified in 2008).

And particularly galling to me, the Netherlands – which has affirmed policies that protect doctors from prosecution for killing infants with disabilities – added the following declaration to their ratification of the Convention:

Article 10
The Kingdom of the Netherlands acknowledges that unborn human life is worthy of protection. The Kingdom interprets the scope of Article 10 to the effect that such protection – and thereby the term ‘human being’ – is a matter for national legislation.

They don’t even think all BORN life is worthy of protection if certain disabilities are apparent!  And do we really want to leave something so basic as the term ‘human being’ up to the tastes and whims of legislative bodies?

So, I’m glad the US Senate is pausing rather than rushing to ratify for several reasons.  But most of all I’m remembering that God is sovereign over even this:

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1 ESV)

And someday, the perfect King will return, and this sort of playing with peoples’ lives and dignity will no longer be possible:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:3 ESV)

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20 ESV)

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And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.  (1 Thessalonians 5:14 ESV)

I was in Chicago over the weekend for some Desiring God events and was reminded that our unique stories give us unique opportunities to point people to God.

• I met a mom who lost her daughter suddenly last year.  God had helped her and held her through that loss and she never felt anger toward God; she deeply encouraged me.  And she wanted prayer for a friend who lives with a deadly degenerative disorder; I think God helped me to serve her.
• I met a grandmother who lost an infant granddaughter to a rare genetic anomaly.  God helped that family through this deep suffering, and amazing things happened.  As they walked with God in their suffering, some people watching them had their blindness to God’s glory removed.  God used that little girl’s 28 days of life to change eternity for some people.  To say I was encouraged is an understatement!
• I met a man who no longer had a job, yet was with his happy wife and children.  Together, these parents were clinging to promises even as they prayed for God’s help for the provision they need.  I saw a good man leading his family well.  It was a joy to pray with and for him.
• I met a couple who left a horrible ‘religious’ movement through a series of incredible, miraculous events. The lingering pain and need for healing after the years they spent in that movement was palpable.  And the rising confidence that God is good and for them because of Jesus Christ was also evident.  It is a privilege to pray for such people.

So much joy in the midst of so much pain.

I didn’t feel ‘fainthearted’ as we went down to Chicago to meet and pray with these friends of Desiring God.  Maybe I was and didn’t realize I was in danger, so God provided the encouragement I needed in an unexpected way through these stories and examples of people walking confidently in faith in the midst of suffering.  Whatever the reason, I’m glad for it because I was encouraged and helped through their stories.

And I was reminded of this simple truth: God is glorious and good to us in ways we cannot begin to comprehend.  Let us use our stories to point people to the source of hope and to encourage each other, for God’s glory and for our joy.

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Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times, had a tremendous article last week on the new genetic testing that is becoming available and its impact on unborn children with disabilities.  In that article, Eugenics, Past and Future, he rightly makes the connection between our eugenic history in the United States and Europe and a potential future that seeks to eradicate even more little human beings.  He brought it to a powerful conclusion (emphasis in bold is mine):

Having left behind pseudoscientific racial theories, it’s easy for us to look back and pass judgment on yesterday’s eugenicists. It’s harder to acknowledge what we have in common with them.

First, a relentless desire for mastery and control, not only over our own lives but over the very marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn. And second, a belief in our own fundamental goodness, no matter to what ends our mastery is turned.

For those of us who, by God’s grace, know we are sinful and evil and need Jesus to be our righteousness, we have no illusions about our own fundamental goodness and have seen at least a glimpse of where our own depravity typically leads.  Mr. Douthat is right to warn us against this flaw in our thinking that somehow we are good.  We only need to look around – that flawed thought stands in contrast to almost every shred of evidence around us.

But I disagreed with the basis of one of his questions:

Is this sort of ”liberal eugenics,” in which the agents of reproductive selection are parents rather than the state, entirely different from the eugenics of Fisher’s era, which forced sterilization on unwilling men and women?

It is true that in the United States, and later in Nazi Germany, that governments were making the decision about the value of ‘unworthy’ human life.  Across the United States, state legislatures were passing laws, implementing programs and executing judgment using the power granted to them.  Eventually the Supreme Court weighed in and determined such laws were constitutional.  And we know what happened in Nazi Germany.

From that sense, abortion is not commanded by our government and decisions are left up to the mother of the unborn child.

But does the lack of governmental coercion mean these are truly free choices?  The stories of women who received pressure to abort – from doctors, from family members, from the father of the child – are endless.  The ominous predictions about what life will be like living with disability in the family also feel endless, and frequently have little basis in reality.  Increasingly, the argument that it is ‘selfish’ to bring a child into the world with a disability is being raised.

And the most alarming statistics of all: rates of abortion that approach or exceed 90% for certain types of disabling conditions.  If that isn’t a demonstration of where our culture is on this issue, then what evidence do we need to provide?

Whether an individual choice or forced by the government, currently the result is the same for most babies identified in the womb with a disabling condition like Down syndrome or spina bifida.  From that perspective, we are no different from earlier eras that promoted eugenics through official governmental policy.

I’m grateful Mr. Douthat wrote an article that rightly used our evil history to lay out a potential future.  Let’s take it all the way and make sure people realize that there is a war against babies with disabilities in this country and there is no neutral ground on this issue.

Finally, we have nothing to fear from the science behind those tests, because they can also be used for a great deal of good. But in this culture until everyone understands the inherent dignity and value of unborn babies, those tests will be used to find and destroy children who would otherwise be born.

And given the selfishness of our own hearts, there is only one real answer that will protect babies: freedom from sin and the certainty of a glorious, joy-filled future with God, found only through Jesus Christ.

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