Born With Defects

Fearfully and wonderfully made?

A Christian once asked me why did God allow birth defects. How can the Bible say we are fearfully and wonderfully made when there are people born with birth defects? My answer is… “I don’t know”. But I can try to make sense of the question in light of my understanding of our God of the Bible whom I trust completely to be in control of everything and everyone..

We bear the image of God

Colossians 1:22 says, “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” This verse says that a Christian with birth defects is without blemish in God’s sight even though in the physical sense he is handicapped. We are deemed fearfully and wonderfully made because we bear the image of God (Genesis 1:26) and not because of how we look.

1 Samuel 16:7 says, ” ..Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Both verses establish a truth we are not used to – that God views the heart while we view the body. Our reality is in the seen while God’s reality is in the unseen.

Born differently for God’s purpose

Instead of saying that a person is born with a defect, our Christian response is to say that  he is born differently from us for God’s purpose. In John 9, we read the story of Jesus’ disciples asking Him for the reason a person was born blind. Jesus’ answer was… “this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). Jesus went on to heal the man and he became a witness for Jesus.

Fanny Crosby, one of the greatest of the world’s hymn writers was blind since six months old. She was used for God’s purpose and went on to write hymns which we still sing today like “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine” , “I am thine O Lord” and “Safe in the arms of Jesus.”

A new body is coming

Finally, a handicapped Christian cannot be trapped in his body forever. When Jesus returns, his body will be changed and whatever defects there are will be gone (1 Cor. 15:51-52). He will have a new body just like every resurrected Christian. That is the hope of Jesus for all of us.

Two Questions From A Seeker

A seeker’s questions

I was recently asked two questions by a seeker of our Christian faith. He wanted to know why we say it is important to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord?  He also wanted to know whether his grandmother who died and had never heard of Jesus would be saved. My answers to his questions are outlined below:-

First question

Why is it so important to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour? Why can’t we just live a good life in this world and end our life here?

Answer : It is not enough to live a good life because it is hard to measure what is a good life. For instance, is Mother Theresa’s life better than Billy Graham’s life? How do we measure the goodness in their lives?

The Bible’s way is better. It says that all of us are bad (Romans 3:23). All of us start from zero baseline. Goodness doesn’t get us salvation. If goodness is the determinant, some will perform better than others. Even as they perform, we can’t measure who performs better than whom and who should then get salvation.

God’s way is fair. All start at the same zero line by faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, when we believe in Jesus as our Saviour, God gives us eternal life. It is God’s gift (John 3:16). It is not something we earn; it is by God’s grace (Eph.2:8). Everyone can have this gift of salvation because we are all bad and don’t deserve it. But God still gives it to us if we believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. That gives everyone the same chance to be saved as it doesn’t depend on how good we can be.

Second question

What will happen to my grandmother who died without knowing about Jesus Christ. Will she have forgiveness and eternal life?

Answer : Whether someone is saved and ends up in heaven is not based on our assessment of his or her life on earth. It is God who finally decides who will be saved; not us. God has stated in His Bible that when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we will be saved (Acts 16:31). As for those who have not heard of Jesus, God has a different basis for judging them.

I quote below Romans 2:12-16 [The Message] which explains God’s thinking in simplified English :-

^12-13 If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.

^14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.

Leave the verdict to God

Based on verse 14, we see that the grandmother who is deemed an outsider will be judged by God not based on her belief in Jesus [she can’t as she had not heard of Jesus]  but on how she responded to God’s moral laws embedded in her being. Did she know what she was doing? Was she deliberately sinning? Again, we are not in a position to assess what will be God’s final verdict for this grandmother. But we know that God is just and merciful and will always judge fairly because that is His nature.

Converse or convert

Finally, as much as we strive to clear up the doubts of those who are seeking God, we need to realise that a person is converted not because all his questions are answered. Conversion is personal. Conversion is an act of God and only He knows who truly accepted His gift of salvation in Christ Jesus. All we can do is to pray for the seeker and trust in God to do what we can never do. All we do is converse and trust God to convert.

Facing Your fears

(A) Feeling fear vs being in fear

We can feel fear and not be in fear. For example, we can be watching a horror movie and feel the fear but we are not in a fearful situation as we are comfortably seated in a leather chair in the cinema hall. Therefore, we need to recognise that just because we feel fear, we  are not in fear as the Lord is our protector. When we have God with us, we need not stay afraid. As such, feeling fear is natural but staying afraid is not spiritual.

(B) How to handle fear

One main area of fear relates to what the future holds for us. The story in Joshua 1:1-9 outlines godly advice as to how to handle your fears with regard to a future situation. Joshua was about to lead the Israelites into the Promise Land and God helped him deal with his fears. You too can learn from this story on how to deal with your fear of the future :-

(i) God will show you His way for you to deal with your fears
Each of us will have to deal with our fears according to how God made us and not try to copy the experience of how other Christians handled their fears. What worked for another Christian need not work for you . God told Joshua, “Moses my servant is dead” [v.2]. God was going to lead Joshua into his own experience with the Lord as he learned to mange his fears. He will discover for himself what his own God is like. God will now become Joshua’s God and not Moses’ God.

(ii) Face your fears without staying afraid
God has placed you in the situation for you to go through it with Him [v.2]. He told Joshua to be strong and not stay afraid-. In verse.6, God reminded Joshua, ” you will lead”

(iii)  Rely on God’s promises
Believe that whatever God has promised, He will fulfil [v.3]. You can rely on His promises.

(iv)  Remember God is with you in your fears.

He will never leave you or forsake you [v. 5]

(v) To conquer your fears , face the facts without weakening in faith

Romans 4:18 tells us not to ignore the facts of our situation. But we are to face the facts and not weaken in faith. Take the example of Abraham. He faced the fact that his body was old and infertile. Yet he never lost faith in God’s ability to do what Abraham could never do – produce a child. Abraham’s God was bigger than his problem with infertility.

In Joshua 1:7-9 – Joshua had to enter the Promise Land. He had to face his feeling of fear and not stay afraid. He has God’s Written Word with him. He also has God’s Living Word [ Preincarnate Jesus was the Commander of the army of the LORD] with him

(vi) Fortify your inside and then deal with your outside
Once your thoughts are aligned with God’s, you take action to do what needs to be done. Joshua’s inside was fortified by God’s assurances and he could then deal with his outside by ordering the officers to get the supplies ready (Joshua 1:10-11). Joshua could prepare his resources with confidence because God was with him and would do for him what he could not do on his own.

In the final analysis, we can face our fears because we have a God who is for us, with us and in us.