Overview:
Perhaps nothing challenges our confidence in the sovereignty and goodness of God more than seeing a child with disabilities. Despite how this truth might agitate our personal sensibilities, the Lord does allow children to be born with missing limbs, contorted bodies, or damaged brains. Contrary to our fearful assumptions, disabilities are not God’s judgment for sin. In fact, Scripture teaches that the Lord ordains a sacred purpose for people with disabilities. As with all weaknesses, disabilities provide Him an opportunity to display His grace and glory.
Message Summary:
In this tender and theologically profound message, Chuck Swindoll addresses the delicate subject of disabilities, birth defects, and special needs within the family. Moving beyond a “cold and calculating” view of theology, Swindoll challenges listeners to embrace the absolute sovereignty of God—the truth that God is in full control of all things, including “creating darkness” and “creating calamity” alongside well-being,. He argues that a correct view of God is essential for navigating life’s hardest moments, asserting that if God is sovereign, then no child is an “accident” or a “mistake,” but rather a life uniquely woven by the Creator,.
Swindoll poses three difficult questions regarding God’s involvement in disabilities, the role of sin, and how to handle confusion,,. Using the analogy of the potter and the clay, he urges parents to accept God’s right to rule and to see their children not through the lens of worldly comparison, but as “specially wrapped” gifts with a divine purpose,. The message concludes with a call for the church to move from staring or ignoring to actively embracing and valuing those with disabilities, realizing that, in a spiritual sense, “we are all disabled,” but some are just better at hiding it than others,.
Message Key Facts:
- The Definition of Sovereignty: Swindoll defines God’s sovereignty as being “supreme” and in “full control of all things.” He argues one cannot be “almost sovereign” any more than one can be “almost married.” This control extends to blessings, disasters, diseases, and the formation of every human life,.
- The “Angel’s Kiss” Illustration: Swindoll recounts a story of a seminary student with a large red birthmark across his face. The student’s confidence came from his father, who told him the mark was where an angel kissed him just before birth to signify, “Now I know you’re mine”.
- Three Tough Questions: Swindoll structures the core of the message around three questions often whispered but rarely asked:
- Is God really involved in birth defects? (Yes, God claims responsibility for making the mute, deaf, and blind),.
- Are disabilities the consequences of someone’s sin? (Generally no, based on Jesus’ teaching in John 9 that blindness was for the display of God’s works, not punishment),.
- How do I handle my confusion? (By acknowledging that God’s ways are unfathomable and trusting His character even when His plan is hidden),.
- The Danger of Comparison: Parents are urged to stop trying to make their children “alike.” Swindoll notes that comparing an intellectually gifted child with one who is not, or an athletic child with one who is a “klutz,” denies God’s unique handiwork in each life.
- The Wheelchair Experience: Swindoll shares a personal experience of sitting in a wheelchair at an airport to understand the perspective of the disabled. He noticed that people stopped looking him in the eye and some even patted him on the head, highlighting the dehumanizing way society often treats the disabled,.
- Potter and the Clay: Drawing from Isaiah 45, the sermon emphasizes that humans (the clay) have no ground to argue with their Maker (the potter) regarding how they were formed. True peace comes from accepting the Potter’s design.
Message References:
- Exodus 4:10–11: God’s response to Moses, declaring that He is the One who makes man mute, deaf, seeing, or blind,.
- Isaiah 45:5–9: A declaration of God’s sovereignty in creating both “well-being” and “calamity,” and the warning that the clay should not quarrel with the Potter,.
- John 9:1–3: Jesus explains that a man’s blindness was not caused by his or his parents’ sin, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him,.
- Psalm 127:3: The affirmation that all children are a gift and a reward from the Lord.
- Psalm 139:13–16: The description of God intimately weaving a child’s “inward parts” and “frame” in the womb, with every day ordained in His book before birth.
- Romans 11:33: A doxology praising the depth of God’s wisdom and acknowledging that His judgments are unsearchable and His ways unfathomable.
