Set Me Free: Devotions From Time of Grace MinistrySample

SET ME FREE FROM PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS: I'M DISABLED

Does anyone in your family have a disability? Do you? My close family has been touched by polio, hydrocephalia, spina bifida, and Williams syndrome (missing genes inhibit full physical growth).

Jesus met many disabled people and loved them all. "Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there" (Mark 3:1). What do you suppose it was like to have a shriveled hand? Kind of hard to play most sports, wouldn't you think? A little tough to impress girls, maybe? Employers might think twice about one-handed hires.

Jesus healed the man in the synagogue instantly, miraculously, with a word. His heart hurt with compassion for his hurting brother. And yet his mission on earth was not primarily to patch up every disabled person. There were still plenty of disabled people on earth when he left, and there are even more today.

Jesus' main mission was to demonstrate in word and deed that God's Son, the world's Savior, had come to earth to teach, suffer, die, and rise again. His greatest gift to us right now, disabled and "abled," is not restoration of broken bodies but restoration of our broken souls through the forgiveness of our sins.

Complete restoration of our bodies will come later.