I missed Pastor Kenny’s introduction to the child dedication service, but I didn’t miss Pastor Bud Burk, Pastor for Child and Youth Discipleship, praying to close that portion of the service on Sunday.
Bud Burk praying after child dedication 2-17-13 BBC
This is the part of Bethlehem that most people never see and for which I am very grateful.
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Yesterday several children were dedicated at Bethlehem.
And once again, Pastor Kenny Stokes reminded the congregation that ALL children are gifts, including the ones with disabilities.
Since most children arrive as they are supposed to, without the complications of disability, it would be easy to turn this dedication service into a sentimental, breezy statement about how wonderful children are. I’m so thankful that Pastor Kenny makes this special effort to remind us that God’s purposes are higher than ours, and that all children in every circumstance should be seen as the gifts they are.
I wasn’t fast enough to record him yesterday, but this older recording will give you an idea how he does it.
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There was some surprisingly good news from the UK yesterday – the numbers of births of children with Down Syndrome has risen since 2000. A number of articles and an explanation are linked to this blog from the New York Times.
But the news is not entirely good. As Dominic Lawson wrote in an editorial in The Independent, it is actually the medical profession that remains most against pre-born children with Down Syndrome actually being born:
For make no mistake: despite all the progress which children with Down Syndrome are now making in schools and homes up and down the country, the medical profession in general still has a visceral bias in favour of eugenic termination, which its practitioners are often startlingly crude in expressing. This is not based on a realistic and up-to-date assessment of the possibilities open to those with Down Syndrome, still less of the happiness which such people can and do bring to families and even communities as a whole: it is a function of the fact – which is undeniable – that people with Down Syndrome are likely to cost the NHS more in subsequent medical treatment than a child without any disabilities.
Lawson, in Shame on the doctors prejudiced against Down Syndrome, makes additional observations about health care in the UK, and how the search for pre-born disabled babies has resulted in a large number of non-disabled babies also lost to abortion or miscarriage due to medical procedures.
The good news of more babies with Down Syndrome being born could be short-term if we do not persevere to provide potential parents with a different reality – including a clear articulation of the supremacy and sufficiency of God in all situations, regardless of what medical professionals may say.
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Last night Pastor John, Pastor Tom Steller and Pastor David Michael recalled their history in facing the horror of abortion. One of the advantages of being around one church for so long, I remembered a lot of that history.
Pastor Jason joined them for a time of questions, and I asked my question about how to help the church see that the children with disabilities should be allowed to live.
Pastor John went right to a theology of suffering and God’s sovereignty. I am very grateful for that persistent, helpful, biblical guidance. If you’re curious about what that means, there are hundreds of resources on suffering at Desiring God.
Pastor Jason added that we parents need to tell our stories. He is so right; we must testify to God’s goodness in the gift of our children with disabilities being the means God has used to help us see and experience more of Him.
And then Pastor Jason put his finger on a rising danger for children like ours – genetic manipulation and the temptation for parents to believe they are sovereign over their children’s existence. He couldn’t know it, but my heart rejoiced at his observation.
Forty years of abortion being the law of the land is discouraging. Even the various state restrictions that have passed are only encouraging to a point; they do not address the incredible cultural bias against unborn children with disabilities. But Pastor Jason’s brief and simple statement reminded me that we do not do this in our own strength and God will provide wisdom. I clearly see God’s hand in guiding my brand-new Pastor for Preaching and Vision, with all the challenges that come with leading a big church, to genetics as a key issue in the pro-life movement going forward.
And after he said it I immediately thought of this verse:
“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV)
He is the God of all flesh, including the unborn babies with disabilities. And there is nothing too hard for him.
Abortion will end someday. Until that day, let us do all we can in the strength God supplies to encourage people to let all the babies live.
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I’m not going to be posting for the next several weeks. I keep running into things on this site that aren’t quite right: broken links, resources not getting added, the ‘old’ blog needs to be retired (I’m tired of the spam comments), etc.
So, I’m going to spend some time on that.
Lord willing, we’ll be back at it in a few weeks.
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Happy New Year! I expect that 2013 will be full of many graces and many hardships, just like every other year. Let us prepare!
Several Bible reading plans begin at the beginning:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
(Genesis 1:1 ESV)
And God keeps creating:
Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
(Exodus 4:11 ESV)
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
(Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
(John 1:3 ESV)
But even before he created anything, he had thought about us:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
(Ephesians 1:3-4 ESV)
And all for a purpose!
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
(Jeremiah 29:11 ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
(Romans 8:28 ESV)
For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you. . .
(1 Thessalonians 1:4 ESV)
And someday, we get to be part of the new heaven and new earth with him:
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
(Revelation 21:6 ESV)
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20 ESV)
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I don’t have a top ten list of anything. There were too many instances of God’s help and kindness – Paul’s seizures coming under control, my dad’s heart issue being dealt with, Mike Beates’ book, the vote on Pastor Jason, the long-anticipated vacation in Colorado, the Desiring God disability conference, etc., etc.
But there was a special moment or, more accurately, 10 minutes, when I felt the presence and pleasure of the Holy Spirit as his word was spoken back to him by a young women who has lived her entire life with disabilities.
As Krista spoke her opening sentences, I knew the many prayers offered for the conference and for her talk were about to be answered:
People ask me how I live with disability.
How do I live with disability?
How do I live with Apert Syndrome?. . .My parents and my pastor told me to keep looking in the Bible.
That’s where I would find answers.
And they helped me to see things that I was missing.
They helped me see that God tells the truth.
So I keep listening to him.
He opens the eyes of my heart and I believe.
I trust him and his words.
God says beautiful things to me.
Listen.
It would be an easy mistake to say Krista did a great job (though she did) and leave the emphasis there. That would not honor Krista at all because that wasn’t the point of her talk. She was helping us see God more clearly. The power was in the God-given faith that God’s promises are true and have relevance to every moment of every day.
I also had a great vantage point:
Watching her intently are Mary and Bob Horning (her mother and father), Pastor John, and Greg Lucas.
So, that is my top moment of 2012. God was kind to give it:
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The Christian’s hope is further bolstered by knowing that our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Owen wrote, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, hath the weight of the whole creation upon his hand, and disposeth of it by his power and wisdom. Such is the nature and condition of the universe, that it could not subsist a moment, nor could anything in it act regularly unto its appointed end, without the continual support, guidance, influence, and disposal of the Son of God.”
Therefore, Sedgwick said, we are not to vex our minds with anxiety about our condition in this world (Matt. 6:28; 1 Peter 5:7; Phil. 4:5–6). Perhaps the means by which we hoped to attain our goals seem impotent. But we must remember that the means are but pipes, whereas God is the fountain; they are mere instruments in His hands. It is not the doctor who heals you, but God who heals you through the doctor. God often works through unlikely means to draw our trust away from what we tend to depend upon and to show us that our blessings truly are gifts from the sovereign God. (Emphasis added)
Beeke, Joel R.; Jones, Mark (2012-10-14). A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Kindle Locations 6790-6800). Kindle Edition.
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The Works of God 
‘Help Save the Ones Around You’ has been posted – thank you for praying
February 19, 2013 by John Knight
My response to the Maryland deaths has been posted at Desiring God: Help Save the Ones Around You.
Thank you for praying for its development. And please pray that God would use this, and a thousand other stories and conversations and blog postings and news articles, to help save more of those babies identified with anomalies and abnormalities in the womb.
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