Hammer your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.
Train even your weaklings to be warriors. (let the weakling say, "I am
strong!") Joel 3:10
I like this picture
of Spock wearing Geordi La Forge's glasses who was blind, from the
television series, Star Trek the Next Generation. I think it’s a good
example on how to deal with a disability in life. People put others
down when they have a disability or handicap. The persecution starts in
elementary school and continues with some adults.
Ray
Charles and Stevie Wonder played the piano and they were blind. Dinah
Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality. She
was stricken with polio (infantile paralysis), a disease that was not
preventable at the time. Her parents cared enough to put Shore into
great care and she recovered and overcame the disease. However, she
suffered from having a slightly deformed foot and limp, none of which
affected her during her lifetime. Beethoven went almost totally deaf.
Heller Keller was blind, deaf and dumb.
President Franklin
Roosevelt (FDR) had polio which resulted in permanent paralysis from the
waist down. It really makes me think that we can be paralyzed at times
physically, but not mentally in the challenge of running the country,
especially the way FDR was. I love this one part of the movie Pearl
Harbor where he talks about that he was confined to a wheel chair, but
how all his military leaders were confined in their minds in finding a
retaliation against Japan for their attack on Pearl Harbor.
Jacob wrestled with an angel in a dream, and he received a hip injury.
The way I look at it is to turn every weakness over to God, and then if
attacks still come, or you can’t get the victory over something than
thank God for that weakness. Jesus said his grace is sufficient for his
strength is made perfect in weakness. I know people who still attend
AA meetings after 10-20 years. It really is no difference than any
other weakness.
Self-control is a virtue of the spirit and I’m
convinced it’s achieved through the grace of God. As long as we think
we can do something through our own good works, we take away the glory
of God’s grace through us. I realize that God gives me the ability to
do good works – not anything I can boast about. Boasting is excluded.
In fact, Paul said he would boast about his afflictions. Paul also said, “I don’t put any confidence in the flesh.” Philip 3:3
I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 2 Cor. 12:5
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Cor. v.7-9
Disabilities and handicaps are hard to deal with, because we are
different than someone else. There are certain discouragements the
enemy hits us with that we can’t get the victory in one area of our life
– than give up on all the other areas. I prayed forty years to get the
victory over poor eyesight. I went and had Lasix surgery. It was such
a blessing, and I am glad I did it. I went to get prayed for
beginning stages of arthritis – had a couple more knee pains, and I
stood on God’s word, and the pain went away over a year ago. The
doctors could not do anything for knee joint pain as far as a cure, but
give me anti-inflammatory medicine.
We can have an emotional,
mental or a physical handicap. I like this song, I used to sing as
young believer…Day by Day, Lord three things I pray, May I know Thee
more clearly, Love Thee more dearly, Follow Thee more nearly. Day by Day
Take one thing at a time in life. One day at a time. …. precept upon
precept, line upon line. Getting through the loss of a child or spouse
is like that, one baby step at a time. Don’t try to hop scotch into a
relationship to get over a spouse, or you are headed for an iceberg in
the future.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon
precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a
little. Isaiah 28:10
Paul was a man of faith – he was so
focused on the Lord that he was able to stay single. There is
speculation that his wife died because he was a former Pharisee and
usually Pharisees were married. And yet Paul said that “Satan stopped
him.”
For we wanted to come to you--certainly I, Paul, did, again and again--but Satan stopped us. 1 Thess. 2:18
Paul had to deal with a thorn in his flesh, we don’t know if it was
physical, emotional, or spiritual but he said it was a messenger of
Satan sent to buffet him. I know there have been times, I’ve felt that
Satan was on my back attacking me through various circumstances in life.
And like Paul, I’ve sought the Lord for certain problems to go away.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great
revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of
Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it
away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness."
We tend to lump everything
together in one category rather than deal with one issue at a time.
Reminds me of men who complain about their wives when they get in an
argument, the wife tells her husband all his faults at the same time. I
had a Temp job where I was late due to car problems and then the
manager unloaded a whole list of things he did not like about me, and
said, “By the way the other secretary made coffee better.” I called the
Temp office, “Take me off this work assignment right away.”
Judas’ problem was holding on to the money bag. He never even came to
Jesus and tried to get whole from his problem, but kept the money bag.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. His horse –
Jesus was right there in his midst. Jesus is in our midst wherever two
or more are gathered in his name. Matthew 18:20
Satan is the
accuser of the brethren. Revelation 12:10 Jesus said to the woman who
was caught in adultery, “You that are without sin cast the first stone.”
We are not to throw stones at others for their weaknesses, but the
Bible talks about we are to “bear one another weaknesses.”
Be
tolerant of one another and forgive each other if anyone has a complaint
against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, you also should
forgive. Colossians 3:13
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:7
A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11
At the cross, Jesus carried our physical, emotional and spiritual
afflictions, and yet we see that believers sin, get sick, and die. The
law in the Old Testament was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ to
show us our shortcomings that we needed Christ. Jesus was tempted on
all points and yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15. He was a single man so he
was tempted with thoughts to lust. He lived the perfect walk for us.
He gave us a new heart and when we are reborn and that nature wants to
please him. We have been given a better covenant which is we are under
grace by faith.
This is the covenant I will make with the house
of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in
their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they
will be my people. Jeremiah 31:33
The way I’ve heard it
described it’s like being a pig and we have given a new heart. We may
go out and try to roll around in the mud because our minds are not
renewed from this world and we still have the same flesh, but our heart
does not feel right about rolling in that mud anymore.
I’ve
been around several people with physical handicaps. I know the enemy
hits those people hard about their physical disabilities to make them
feel inferior. He does not help with people’s attitudes towards them
either. It sort of reminds me of when I had a bandage on my face and
this little girl at Chucky Cheese pizza asked me “What is wrong with
your face.” What is wrong with your life? There is something “out of
joint” or crooked about this picture of your life.
Therefore,
strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your
feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Hebrews
12:12-13
I’ve been around several people with mental
disabilities as far as bi-polar illness, or severe depression, and some
take medicine and some do not. One thing that helped me when I first
became a Christian in getting over a boyfriend I was involved with is I
said on a regular basis, “The Lord restores my soul” like David talked
about in Psalm 23, same thing in a divorce and it’s the same in death of
a spouse. There seems to be a connection of healing with our soul
/mind and our body.
Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. 3 John 1:2
I believe the important to ask God to even “help us” not to focus on
our weakness, focus on our strengths and focus on other strengths. They
have a joke about people who live in California that they can live
there because they don’t focus on the fault. Same way when we are
dating or married. Focus on the other person’s positive traits. As God
said to Paul focus on the strength that comes from God.
We are not living by my circumstances in life, but we are to live by the faith of the son of God.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ
lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
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