The Works of God

Greg Lucas (yes, that Greg Lucas) did a fantastic job at The Elisha Foundation retreat of opening up the scriptures and leading us through some of the amazing truths about God captured in Ephesians 1 and 2.  His last session on Ephesians 2 reminded us about who we were (dead), who we are in Christ (alive) and why we are here:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:1-10

Disability is no barrier to Christ calling one to eternal life.  Disability, in ourselves or in our family members, is not as bad as being spiritually dead!  In my case, God uses my son’s disability to constantly call me back to him.

Thank you, Greg, for pointing us to Jesus for four straight days!

If those talks he gave are made available, I’ll link to them here.

To get to The Elisha Foundation retreat last Thursday required a drive up the Oregon coast.

Just a few miles from our destination, Paul had one of his mysterious episodes.  They continue to break my heart and I quietly prayed as I drove, “Lord, help my boy. Help me!”

And he did.

Just a few minutes after that episode, we turned a corner and saw the mighty Pacific Ocean.  My children had never seen an ocean before, it had been years since I had seen one and Paul was now relatively comfortable and resting, so we stopped to take it in.

On that stretch of coast the waves crash with a thunderous roar against the rocks and the beach.  It is an awesome display of raw, unrelenting power.  It was beautiful and compelling and dangerous.

And God reminded me, “I hold that together – that expanse that runs for thousands of miles in both directions is under my absolute control.  Every water molecule behaves exactly as I designed it and desire it.”

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17

All things, including boys with mysterious, painful ailments.  Especially boys with mysterious, painful ailments.  My son has not been forgotten, and God knows everything about him:

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7

I thank God for those crashing waves because of what they reminded me about God.

Isaiah 49:13-16

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.”

Sometimes a phrase just leaps out of the Bible at me.  This familiar passage has taken on new emphasis these past months:

And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. Luke 8:43

Twelve years – that’s a long time.

Because of the access I’ve been given to medical insurance wherever I have worked, we aren’t bankrupt.  That is a huge grace from God.

And we’ve also still spent a great deal of money on physicians.  We still don’t know what is causing Paul’s ‘episodes.’  I think I understand a little of that’s woman’s desperation.

A simple touch of Jesus’ garment was all that God used to heal her – no words from Jesus, no touch, no mud.

Unfortunately, ‘faith healers’ have abused this passage where Jesus concludes by saying, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”  They point to this and accuse those who continue to live with disability of not having enough faith to be healed.

That’s just wrong.  Romans 12:3-8 highlight how wrong it is:

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, [6] with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

We have not earned our faith – we have been given it!  We have different gifts according to the grace given to us!  We are to use our gifts for the sake of the body!

And what do you do with Paul, who was used by God to actually heal people?  He prayed about his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:1-10) and it was not removed.   Rather, he concluded:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Jesus knows what we need!  Jesus is our strength!  If he heals, it is to bring greater glory to God.  If he doesn’t heal, he uses it to draw us more closely to him.  Both are good things.

I love this old hymn that reminds me – my hope is built on him, not on me:

My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

 

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

 

 

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

 

 

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

 

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

Matthew tells us that those living with disability had people who cared about them and brought them to Jesus:

Matthew 15:30-31 And great crowds came to him, 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.

What was that like, these great crowds?  Were they desperate, like the four men in Mark 2 carrying the paralytic who were willing to destroy somebody else’s property?  Were they hopeful or skeptical?  Were they encouraging each other or jockeying for a better position?

When they glorified the God of Israel, did they understand what they were doing?  Did Jesus look extraordinary and beautiful to them, even better than the healing they had just experienced or observed?  Or was he just a means to a preferred end?

A few years ago Joni Eareckson Tada came and spoke at Bethlehem.  It was glorious – wheelchairs and canes and walkers in every section.  People living with Down syndrome and deafness and global developmental delays and blindness and spina bifida and things I can’t pronounce all over the room.  Moms and dads and children living the life that my family lives dominated the sanctuary!  And we were worshipping God! It was one of my happiest moments at church and still brings tears to my eyes these many years later.

Was the great crowd in Matthew 15 happy like that?