Set Me Free: Devotions From Time of Grace MinistrySampel

SET ME FREE FROM PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS: IT'S CONGENITAL Our church's gospel choir once played for a conference involving the hard of hearing. A woman told me through an interpreter that she had "heard" music for the first time in her life--we sing and play pretty loud, and by standing up and leaning on a wall, she could "feel" our songs through the wall's vibration. Which do you suppose is worse--to be congenitally deaf or to lose your hearing later in life? Is it better to have known light and color at least for a little before blindness sets in, or is it better never to know what you're missing? Here's the worst fear of all: to dread that a congenital disability is a punishment from God. "As [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'" Jesus' reply brings heartfelt comfort to all who fear that a disability is a punishment: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, . . . but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life" (John 9:1-3). What an honor it is to be a canvas on which our God can paint a beautiful picture! How much more joyful our lives can be when we are willing to let God use us as we are, broken and limping, blind and deaf, for his agenda of human spiritual rescue.