The Works of God

A helpful word from Charles Spurgeon about using the gifts we have for God’s glory and for the sake of other people, like the four men who brought the paralytic to Jesus:

After all, the method which the four friends followed was one most suitable to their abilities. They were, I suppose, four strong fellows, to whom the load was no great weight, and the work of digging was comparatively easy. The method suited their capacity exactly.

And what did they do when they had let the sick man down? Look at the scene and admire? I do not read that they said a single word, yet what they did was enough: abilities for lifting and carrying did the needful work.

Some of you say, “Ah, we cannot be of any use; we wish we could preach.” These men could not preach: they did not need to preach. They lowered the paralytic, and their work was done. They could not preach, but they could hold a rope. . .

O hearts that love sinners lay their lost estate before Jesus; bring their cases as they are before the Savior; if your tongues stammer, your hearts will prevail; if you cannot speak even to Christ himself, as you would desire, because you have not the gift of prayer, yet if your strong desires spring from the spirit of prayer you cannot fail. God help us to make use of such means as are within our power, and not to sit down idly to regret the powers we do not possess.

Charles Spurgeon, Carried by Four, delivered March 19, 1871.

It is also a good reminder – our family and friends with disabilities may not be able to do many things, but God has given them something to do for his glory.  Let us work hard to prepare everyone to use the gifts they have, and not simply grieve what we think is lacking.

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Mark Talbot is a gift to Christ’s church.  He uses his massive intellectual gifts for the sake of the church, and God has shaped those gifts through Dr. Talbot’s disability.  I pray you’ll get to know him better in 2012:

I have come to realize that God is protecting me from idolatrous self-sufficiency by taking various goods away from me so that I am not tempted to rest satisfied in them.  Each morning as I get up, my disability prompts me to trust God rather than to rely on my own strength.  And so, in this second stage of my coming to understand how God works in and through our difficulties, I came to realize that some things that are really evil – Christians are not Christian Scientists who say that evil is illusory – are also really good and that, as such, these evils are actually ordained by God.

What does it mean to say that God ordains something? It means that he has eternally willed it to come about.

Mark Talbot, “True Freedom: The Liberty that Scripture Portrays as Worth Having” in Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity, edited by John Piper, Justin Taylor and Paul Kjoss Helseth, p. 88.

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Twitter was made for men like Paul Tripp.  I appreciate how carefully he uses 140 characters!

To think today, when your life doesn’t work as planned, that it’s out of control is to forget that Jesus reigns for your sake and his glory.  Posted 10/17

Don’t complain as if you’ve been singled out for particular suffering. What you’re experiencing is uncomfortable, transforming grace. Posted 11/17

When you chafe against your circumstances, you’re falling into thinking you know better than the One who controls every circumstance. Posted 12/1

If you’re God’s child you have reason to be thankful no matter what you’re facing because God has invaded your life with his grace.  Posted 12/2

He is good, he is wise, he is loving, he is powerful, he is forgiving and he is your Father. Posted 12/10

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I’ve read a lot of Joni’s materials, but A Place of Healing has taught me the most.  The comparison of false hope with real healing, and what the means in this life, is God-centered and stunning:

Someone might ask, “Have you always had such contentment, Joni?” And I would have to answer no. I well remember the first Christmas I got out of the hospital, my first visit home since the accident. Depressed and frightened, I remember going to church with my family on Christmas Eve. One particular carol stands out in my mind. I remember singing, with tears falling from my eyes:

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Son of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings.

When we got to that third verse of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” I thought, Im sure this Christmas season I’ll get up out of my wheelchair-risen with healing in His wings!

Little did I know (and I don’t know if I would have understood even if you had explained it to me) that in due time, God would heal me-but on a level I would have never dreamed.

Just two years later, on another Christmas, I found the very peace and contentment that had eluded me. I also found joy, simply because I had embraced His will for my life.

And what is His will?

That you and I be in the best position, the best place, the timeliest circumstance in which God can be glorified the most.

For me, that place just happens to be a wheelchair.

That happens to be my place of healing.

Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty, Kindle Location 469-77.

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A helpful word from Paul Miller, a father of a daughter with disabilities, in his book, A Praying Life:

Suffering is God’s gift to make us aware of our contingent existence. It creates an environment where we see the true nature of our existence—dependent on the living God.

Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World, Kindle Locations 1676-1677.

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The truth is, in this world it’s a 100 percent guarantee that we will suffer.

But at the same time, Jesus Christ is 100 percent certain to meet us, encourage us, comfort us, grace us with strength and perseverance, and yes, even restore joy in our lives.

Your Savior is 100 percent certain to be with you through every challenge.

The Bible tells us time and again that God is faithful, and greater is He who is in you than any ache or pain or even terminal illness.

Joni Eareckson Tada, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty, Kindle Locations 1398-1401.

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When something bad happens, we can be so quick to get mad at God, laying the blame for our suffering at his doorstep. But I sometimes wonder why nobody ever exclaims when they suffer, “I am so mad at sin!”

Shouldn’t we lay the blame for suffering where it belongs? Shouldn’t the suffering of this world make us really mad at sin and the power it has to hurt us and those we love?

Shouldn’t it cause us to be grateful that God hates sin and the suffering it causes so much that he was willing to send his Son to die to free this world from the curse and brokenness of sin?

Nancy Guthrie, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow, p. 75.

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