So that God Might Be Glorified!

Have you ever wondered why you are given a certain affliction in this life?

If you’ve followed with me these many years, you have certainly heard about my firstborn cherub, Raemey Joy. Beyond being the sweetest and brightest 4 year-old (5 next week) I know, Raemey has done more to teach me about the nature of God in her few years than the sum of my complete life’s work.

As I have said many times, Raemey was born with a genetic disorder called Achondroplasia. When we heard that phrase from the OB GYN a few weeks before she was born, we were as lost as you are now as you read it. In short (no pun intended), Achondroplasia is the genetic condition that causes acutely short stature; she is a dwarf. Technically termed a “little person,” Raemey will likely achieve a height of about 4 four feet, give or take. Her arms and legs are roughly half the length of an “average” person, while her torso and head are generally normal. Now, there are all types of dwarfism (200 known), but hers in the most common. She is part of a very small and very tight knit community of people in America, totaling less than 3000. Even at her young age, she’s had multiple surgeries, including a perilous brainstem decompression that undoubtedly saved her life.

When we found out what she was going to be challenged with and what we would have to adjust to, I confess openly, I was confused. In the back of my mind, that ever pervasive question of “why” was lurking. “Why is she like this?” “Is her condition a product of my past sinfulness?” These questions and many more in the same vein crossed my lips as I came face to face with expectations changed.

And then, as God is so good at doing, I was drawn to His Word, and most specifically to John 9. As the story opens, Jesus and his disciples come upon a man who has been blind since birth. As was taught by the rabbis in Jesus’ day, the apostles immediately jumped to the conclusion that his present affliction was the product of one of his parent’s sins – that God Himself was punishing and enacting revenge on the offspring of sinners. In one of the most powerful statements the Savior ever spoke, he flatly told the disciples that his condition was not a result of a parent’s sin, but the cornerstone on which God would build the temple of His glory. And, as the story goes, the man was healed and God was glorified.

What a revelation from the Lord!!! In my momentary grief, I was certain that my precious little child was being punished for my vast sin; yet, what indeed was at work was bigger than either one of us. Indeed, Raemey has already, in five short years, served as a stage on which the glory of God has been proclaimed for many to see! It’s hard for us in the life to have kingdom eyes when it comes to our own sufferings and challenges. Even the apostle Paul bemoaned a certain “thorn in the flesh” which God had given him to keep him both humble and an ongoing instrument of His visible grace. I wonder today, what plagues you or someone you love? Is it physical? Is it situational? Maybe poverty or brokenness has fallen upon your house. Maybe you’ve experienced loss or grief indescribable in human words and grope, as in the darkness, for an answer to the pain. Oh, beloved, may the Savior come to you today and extend His message of peace once again, as He proclaims, “this has happened that the work of God might be displayed in your life.” Will you give God the glory today?


As you worship this week:

Meditate – on the perfection of God’s creation.

Contemplate – on how each individual, no matter their make-up, represents the genius and image of God.

Seek – the revealing nature of God, and how He seeks to be glorified in your own life.

Find – the opportunity to glorify God through any adversity you have in your life, no matter how profound.

Resounding Themes:

To God Be the Glory
Suffering Produces Perseverance
Christ In Us, the Hope of Glory
I Believe!

Getting READY to Worship

Ready, Set, READ

John 9:1-41

Ready, Set, MEDITATE

- Who do Jesus and his disciples encounter on their journey? Is it important that John mentions he is blind from birth? What is the disciples’ immediate reaction to him? Is this shocking? Why or Why Not?

- How does Jesus correct their assumptions? In fact, why does Jesus assert the man has been blind all this time? Does that give you comfort or distress to hear it? Why or Why not?

- How does Jesus heal the man? What does the man have to do to complete the work? Is it significant that the man does not get instantly well? How is the man treated by the Pharisees after he is healed? After he is thrown out of the synagogue, Jesus finds him and asks him what? How does the man respond? Why is this important?

- Do you have some type of affliction that you’ve always wondered why God could have allowed it to happen? Knowing what Jesus says in John 9, could it be that your specific situation has occurred so that the work of God could be displayed more plainly in your life? Are you letting God shine through your weakness or are you still wallowing in your misery and questioning God?

Ready, Set, PRAY

How perfect are Your ways, O Sovereign Master. So vast are the sum of Your thoughts, that, had we were able to count them, they would outnumber the stars in the heavens. For Your ways are not like our own and Your timing transcends the calendar of man. In You is all power and control and peace.

We are a broken people, O God, wrestling daily with the afflictions that plague us in this life. For one, its physical infirmity. For another, it’s a fallen relationship. For still another, it is loss so painful that words cannot express the grief and anger buried inside.

Our Savior and Our God, reach down into our misery and grant us a glimpse into the glory You see, the glory that awaits You as we recognize what You are doing through our pain. Father, if it be Your will, release us from this burden that we would suffer no more. But if not…if this affliction is to be the stage on which You perform Your mighty spectacle of grace…then grant us the ability to sustain a steadfast will and a heart that seeks to give you the glory in all things.

And may we be made strong in our weakness!

By the healing hand of the Master, we cry, AMEN.

Ready, Set, WORSHIP!