Read: Revelation 4
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
(1 Corinthians 10:31)
The Bible tells us repeatedly that one of our main functions as human beings who have been created in the image of God is to give glory to God (Psalm 3:3-4; Colossians 1:15-18). The Bible also tells us that heaven and earth are filled with the glory of God (Numbers 14:21; Isaiah 6:3). At first glance, there appears to be something of a contradiction, or at least a paradox, here: How can we give God something He already has?
It seems to me that a key to resolving this conundrum can be found in the psalmist’s exhortation: “Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, / ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. / Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; / bring an offering and come into his courts” (Psalm 96:7-8). To “ascribe” something to someone means to “give credit” to someone as “being the cause” of something. In other words, we give glory to God when we give Him the credit for who we are and what we have. When we do this, we are actually reflecting God’s glory back to Him.
But, for those of us who have disabilities which are the result of malfunctioning bodies and/or minds, there is sometimes a tendency to think that our disabilities somehow disqualify us from bringing glory to God because we’ve bought into the able-ist worldview of our society. According to this able-ist worldview, the presence of disability may well be a cause for ascribing blame, but certainly not for ascribing glory.
Jesus, however, demonstrated a very different view of disability during his earthly ministry. Upon encountering a man who had been born blind, Jesus’ disciples asked him, "Teacher, whose sin caused this man to be born blind-his own sin or his parents' sin?" Jesus answered, "It is not this man's sin or his parents' sin that made him blind. This man was born blind so that God's power could be shown in him” (John 9:2-3, New Century Version). In this encounter, Jesus teaches us that, rather than being disqualified from bringing glory to God, people with disabilities can be uniquely positioned to bring glory to God in ways that will have maximum impact. (And you don’t necessarily need to be healed from your disability for this to happen! But that’s a subject for a future post... :-)
Loving Heavenly Father, Thank you for giving all human beings the capacity to reflect Your glory, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. Grant me the perceptiveness to catch glimpses of Your glory in those around me. May I daily become more and more conformed to the life of Jesus, so that I may reflect His glory with increasing clarity. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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Friday 29 November 2013
Wednesday 27 November 2013
Honest Thanksgiving
Read: Psalm 71
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor
and comfort me once more.
I will praise you with the harp
for your faithfulness, my God... (Psalm 71:20-22)
I don’t know about you, but there have certainly been seasons of my life when thanking God for anything felt like an impossibility, at best, or an outright lie, at worst. For me, 2008 was one of those years. (Yes, I said “years!”) In January of that year, I was the victim of a violent home invasion which almost cost me my life. And by late August, I was in hospital fighting for my life again–this time, because of aspiration pneumonia.
On the infrequent occasions when I was “with it” enough to pray at all during my first week in the hospital, my prayers were more like that of an exhausted and depressed Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 than anything resembling thanksgiving. It was toward the end of this week that one of my “email carrier pigeons” (i.e., friends who had volunteered to check my email, and print off emails that they thought I’d like to hear) brought me an email from a close friend of mine who lives in another city. In this email, my friend first assured me that I was being prayed for–A LOT. And then, he referred me to today’s Scripture reading from Psalm 71, suggesting that this might be a prayer that I could pray for myself.
During the months of slow and arduous recovery that followed, I did periodically endeavour to pray Psalm 71 for myself. But because I was stuck in a lamenting frame of mind, I would invariably omit the first word, “though,” and stop at the end of the first sentence. My “prayer” thus amounted to, “You have made me see troubles, many and bitter. The End.” (I’m pretty sure this wasn't what my friend had in mind when he pointed me to this Psalm!) One day though, I sensed God saying to me “But this is NOT “The End”–of the psalm, or of you! You need to KEEP GOING!” So this time, I made myself pray on through the rest of the Psalm. As I did, I was struck with the realization that God doesn't expect, or even want, thanksgiving that glosses over our trials and discouragement. Rather, what God wants is “honest thanksgiving” – thanksgiving in which we acknowledge the existence and severity of our struggles, and yet affirm our trust in a Wise and Loving Heavenly Father who will sustain us in and through all of our struggles.
Loving and Wise Heavenly Father, Thank you that you are a God who is big enough to handle honest thanksgiving. Please help me to learn and practice this art more and more, as I encounter seasons of trouble and discouragement. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor
and comfort me once more.
I will praise you with the harp
for your faithfulness, my God... (Psalm 71:20-22)
I don’t know about you, but there have certainly been seasons of my life when thanking God for anything felt like an impossibility, at best, or an outright lie, at worst. For me, 2008 was one of those years. (Yes, I said “years!”) In January of that year, I was the victim of a violent home invasion which almost cost me my life. And by late August, I was in hospital fighting for my life again–this time, because of aspiration pneumonia.
On the infrequent occasions when I was “with it” enough to pray at all during my first week in the hospital, my prayers were more like that of an exhausted and depressed Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 than anything resembling thanksgiving. It was toward the end of this week that one of my “email carrier pigeons” (i.e., friends who had volunteered to check my email, and print off emails that they thought I’d like to hear) brought me an email from a close friend of mine who lives in another city. In this email, my friend first assured me that I was being prayed for–A LOT. And then, he referred me to today’s Scripture reading from Psalm 71, suggesting that this might be a prayer that I could pray for myself.
During the months of slow and arduous recovery that followed, I did periodically endeavour to pray Psalm 71 for myself. But because I was stuck in a lamenting frame of mind, I would invariably omit the first word, “though,” and stop at the end of the first sentence. My “prayer” thus amounted to, “You have made me see troubles, many and bitter. The End.” (I’m pretty sure this wasn't what my friend had in mind when he pointed me to this Psalm!) One day though, I sensed God saying to me “But this is NOT “The End”–of the psalm, or of you! You need to KEEP GOING!” So this time, I made myself pray on through the rest of the Psalm. As I did, I was struck with the realization that God doesn't expect, or even want, thanksgiving that glosses over our trials and discouragement. Rather, what God wants is “honest thanksgiving” – thanksgiving in which we acknowledge the existence and severity of our struggles, and yet affirm our trust in a Wise and Loving Heavenly Father who will sustain us in and through all of our struggles.
Loving and Wise Heavenly Father, Thank you that you are a God who is big enough to handle honest thanksgiving. Please help me to learn and practice this art more and more, as I encounter seasons of trouble and discouragement. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Wednesday 13 November 2013
The Mission of Being Out-of-Commission
/Read: Psalm 119:65-71
"He has alienated my family from me;
my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
My relatives have gone away;
my closest friends have forgotten me.
My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;
they look on me as on a stranger.” (Job 19:13-15)
Most people who have experienced a long-term bout with illness and/or depression can
probably relate very closely to the isolation and loneliness that Job talks about in these verses. There is often something inherently isolating about suffering of any kind. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is a common, subconscious fear that, if people get too close to suffering, they will somehow ‘catch it’ and end up as sufferers themselves.
The writer of Psalm 119, however, seems to have a very different attitude toward suffering: he declares, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71). Like many of us, it seems that the psalmist discovered that God brought affliction and suffering into his life in order to, first of all, get his attention, and thereby to bring him into a place where God could reveal Himself to the psalmist and begin to teach the psalmist His ways. This suggests that God can often use the isolation we experience as a result of our suffering to quiet our hearts and minds to a point where we are at last able to hear Him speaking to us. Evidently, there is something about suffering, and the isolation which often accompanies it, that gets us into a physical, emotional, and spiritual space where we are able to hear God speak to us in ways that we often miss or ignore when we are caught up in our “regular” lives.
Gracious Heavenly Father, I confess that, when I find myself in seasons of suffering, my first response is usually to lament–and resent–the inactivity and isolation that come with the suffering. In the midst of my physical and/or emotional pain, please grant me the patience and discernment to be able to quiet my heart and listen for Your voice, and learn the lessons that You desire to teach me in and through my suffering. By Your grace, may I emerge from my seasons of suffering saying with the Psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
"He has alienated my family from me;
my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
My relatives have gone away;
my closest friends have forgotten me.
My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;
they look on me as on a stranger.” (Job 19:13-15)
Most people who have experienced a long-term bout with illness and/or depression can
probably relate very closely to the isolation and loneliness that Job talks about in these verses. There is often something inherently isolating about suffering of any kind. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is a common, subconscious fear that, if people get too close to suffering, they will somehow ‘catch it’ and end up as sufferers themselves.
The writer of Psalm 119, however, seems to have a very different attitude toward suffering: he declares, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71). Like many of us, it seems that the psalmist discovered that God brought affliction and suffering into his life in order to, first of all, get his attention, and thereby to bring him into a place where God could reveal Himself to the psalmist and begin to teach the psalmist His ways. This suggests that God can often use the isolation we experience as a result of our suffering to quiet our hearts and minds to a point where we are at last able to hear Him speaking to us. Evidently, there is something about suffering, and the isolation which often accompanies it, that gets us into a physical, emotional, and spiritual space where we are able to hear God speak to us in ways that we often miss or ignore when we are caught up in our “regular” lives.
Gracious Heavenly Father, I confess that, when I find myself in seasons of suffering, my first response is usually to lament–and resent–the inactivity and isolation that come with the suffering. In the midst of my physical and/or emotional pain, please grant me the patience and discernment to be able to quiet my heart and listen for Your voice, and learn the lessons that You desire to teach me in and through my suffering. By Your grace, may I emerge from my seasons of suffering saying with the Psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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