The Quest For Fulfilment
By
© Copyright, Grantley Morris, 1985-1996.
For much more by the same author, see www.net-burst.net
No part of these writings may be sold, and no
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In Australian Spelling
Chapter 14: Disasters - Divine And Demonic
In 1950 Siamese twins were born. Separation was impossible. They
shared the one bladder, lower intestine, rectum and reproductive
system. Of their three legs, two were functional. Masha controlled
one, Dasha controlled the other. Yet though they shared organs
and even the same disease-carrying blood, they contracted illnesses
separately. When one was stricken with measles, for instance,
the other was perfectly well. If you think that's bizarre, read
on.
Willie Burton, pioneer missionary to the Congo, prayed for Chief
Lubinda's withered arm. As he prayed the arm healed. Moved by
this spectacular proof of divine power, the chief pleaded with
the missionary to bring the gospel to his people. But it was impossible.
'God's miracle worker' was too sick to go.
Sickness and disability seem to bar so many of us from service
that I cannot avoid the issue, though unravelling the easy cases
would take a spiritual Sherlock Holmes. Desiring to simplify the
complexities of life, we tend to ram the many reasons for affliction
into just one or two categories and then wonder why our answer
doesn't work with everyone.
By re-weaving several threads in this book we will produce a simple
but revealing tapestry.
You will recall, at his royal command performance, Moses' rendition
of If I had a stammer. That song and dance didn't go down
too well. Like his speech impediment, some disabilities are toothless
tigers. Mrs Scudder was denied mission board support because they
were sure she could not withstand the harsh conditions in India.
She went despite their protests, and remained for sixty-three
years. We could cower before our limitations, unaware that we
are being terrorised by a set of gums!
On your behalf I have researched the lives of hundreds of people.
Of all the things that moved me, I was perhaps most powerfully
struck by those who faced crippling health problems and won. I
refer to people who won, not in the sense of quickly regaining
health, but by achieving amazing things in the face of infirmities
that would have rendered other people helpless. Earth owes much
to tough people in weak bodies; people like Livingstone, Brainerd,
Finney, Hudson Taylor, 'Praying Hyde,' Catherine Booth, 'Granny'
Brand and a multitude more. A strong spirit brings more glory
than a strong body.
So some afflictions can be ignored. Others are oppressive obstacles
that must be blasted by the explosive power of faith. But some
are a friend.
God can make disability a ministry launching pad.
'Why was this man born blind?' the disciples probed the Son of
God.
'That the works of God might be manifested,' came the reply. (John
9:1-3) Then Jesus healed him. Instantly, a flood of ministry opportunities
engulfed the beggar. It seemed everyone wanted to hear his story.
Healing is a striking testimony to God, (Matthew 11:21-24; Mark
16:20; John 5:36; 10:25,38; 11:4; 14:11; 15:24; Acts 4:14; 14:3;
15:10-12; Hebrews 2:4) but this thrilling opportunity has one
drawback: to receive a miraculous healing you must first be sick.
And the longer and more chronic your illness, the more powerful
the testimony.
But ill health can launch us into service without such fireworks.
'You have heard of the endurance of Job,' wrote James as he sought
to spark his readers. (James 5.11) From a ministry perspective,
the most productive part of Job's long life was the time of his
illness. Even today Job lifts us. We know he understands.
Some people suffer so greatly that all they need do is remain
remotely Christ-like to achieve more for God than a thousand sermons.
You'll find that unbelievable until touched by someone whose flickering
love for God continues despite intense suffering.
Leslie Lemke, whose story I related earlier, personifies another
route to ministry. Severe handicaps have heightened his ministry
by focusing the world's attention on the musical gift God has
given him.
Then there's the pruning principle.
It is said George Matheson's blindness sharpened his spiritual
sight. Pious nonsense? Fanny Crosby wouldn't think so. She claimed
that if offered the chance to regain her sight she would refuse.
Fanny believed she would not have been such a prolific hymn writer
if forced to cope with the distractions presented to seeing eyes.
Call me a sceptic, but Fanny was blinded soon after birth. How
accurately could she guess the 'disadvantages' of sight? Was she
over-zealous in wanting to see blessing in tragedy? Surprising
confirmation of her view flows from a secular source. In Creative
Malady, British medical professor, Sir George Pickering, explored
the lives of five famous people whose work, he believes, benefited
from psychosomatic illnesses. Pickering also noted that one of
his students was unexceptional until tuberculosis confined him
to a sanatorium for a year. The man read and thought and emerged
a changed person who extended the boundaries of human knowledge.
The professor tells of another colleague whose great intellect
apparently benefited from the 'enforced solitude' of illness.
For similar reasons, when Pickering was cured of a painful arthritic
condition, he admits his relief was mixed with sadness.
New Zealand artist, Rei Hamon, discovered his unique ability when
as an injured logger he began filling the empty hours by making
little dots on paper. Similarly, for Geoff Goodfellow, back pain
boarded up previous openings and turned a poetry-hater into one
of Australia's most popular poets.
People are amazed at what physicist Stephen Hawking has accomplished
despite his chronic limitations. Yet the world-famous scientist
achieved little before contracting motor neuron disease. There
were too many other things to do, and no apparent urgency. Hawking,
like so many people before him, seems to have excelled because
of his handicap.
So there are at least four ways in which the wall of affliction
can become a door to service.
* Your ailment could be used to display the healing power of the
risen Lord, blazing new avenues for witness.
* It could highlight your godliness, inspiring others and demonstrating
the reality of God, even if, like Job, you lack special talent.
* Or, like black velvet behind a diamond, it could draw people's
attention to your talent, as it has done for Leslie Lemke, quadriplegic
Joni Eareckson Tada and many others.
* It could seal off distractions, funnelling your efforts into
those skills the Lord wants you to excel in.
Irrespective of whether it is hepatitis or a broken leg, chicken
pox or cancer, sickness is sometimes the physical manifestation
of a mental problem.
If, for instance, we fear God's call, sickness can be an agonising
but effective way of avoiding commitment, without the need to
consciously rebel. Be it social or family or work pressures, competitive
sport, exams or whatever, if an individual finds something sufficiently
traumatic and yet feels obliged to do it, medical illness is an
escape hatch the unconscious mind is likely to seize.
Or illness could be our psyche's attempt to entice the attention
or sympathy of someone, perhaps even of God.
Another possibility is that we are unconvinced of our right to
vibrant health. Again, this may be conscious or unconscious, spiritual
(eg guilt), or non-spiritual (eg parental messages received as
a child). Whatever the cause, a weakened will to resist illness
can make us vulnerable to almost any illness. As we saw from twins
Masha and Dasha, there is more to illness than the chance exposure
to disease.
It may be liberating to prayerfully and gently let God examine
our hidden motives, but in the lives of other people, we should
play amateur psychiatrist no more than we would become a back-yard
surgeon. Consider Amy Carmichael, who spent twenty highly productive
years in India with seldom a pain-free moment and practically
never venturing out of her room. I dare not touch even her memory
by wondering whether Amy sought healing with sufficient intensity;
whether, for instance, her subconscious found sickness a way,
albeit a tortuous one, of avoiding distraction, thus empowering
her to focus on more critical work. Since God has vowed to mould
all things for good in the lives of his darlings, it is hardly
surprising if we could see certain advantages in Amy's tragedy.
So rather than flirt with the devil, who delights in turning the
screws on suffering Christians, I exalt Amy as an inspiration
to all who are afflicted by limitations that will not budge. As
distressing as infirmity is, we should follow her lead of refusing
to use painful limitations as an excuse for opting out of divine
obligations.
* Poor health could be a leash used by God as the only way of
restraining us from a foolish move.
* It could be the product of an ungodly lifestyle. I'm sure you
could denounce drunkenness, drugs, smokes and promiscuity as eloquently
as me. Most of us are also alert to the health-destroying sins
of anger, envy and bitterness. But I draw attention to lack of
faith, manifesting itself in worry, frantic activity and a refusal
to delegate. More subtle still is the pressure to be over-zealous,
slaving dangerously long hours 'for the Lord'.
* We have noted that frail health could be a Satanic obstruction
against which we should call down fire from heaven. On the other
extreme, however, Scripture is emphatic that illness could be
divine punishment. (Eg, Numbers 12:8-10; 2 Samuel 12:13-14; 24:10-15;
2 Kings 15:5; 2 Chronicles 21: 14-15; 26:18-20; John 5:14; Acts
13:10-11; 1 Corinthians 11:29-30; Revelation 16:2) (We need go
no further than Job's counsellors to see how this truth can be
horribly abused.)
* Arthritis might be a cross to bear - if it resulted from languishing
in a damp cell while awaiting trial for one's faith. We saw earlier
that, as Jesus used the term, a 'cross' is suffering voluntarily
embraced in order to follow Christ. Paul's wounds and Epaphroditus'
illness fit this narrow slot. (Philippians 2:27, 30) Looking down
from heaven, earth's events are seen upside down: Paul's marks
of shame, for instance, become medals of honour. Causes of pain
can be reasons for joy.
* Could a heavenly experience make you ill? It happened in the
Bible and a refusal to lower God's Word from the status of God's
book for today to spiritual ancient history compels the conclusion
that it could happen to you. Paul's encounter with the risen Lord
damaged his eyes. (Acts 9:3-18) On Patmos John fell down as if
dead. (Revelation 1:17) 'No one can see my face and live,' the
Lord warned Moses who had to settle for a lesser revelation. (Exodus
33:20-23) After a vision 'Daniel fainted and was sick' for days.
Another vision physically overwhelmed him and temporarily left
him dumb. (Daniel 8:27; 10:8-17) For Ezekiel and John the Baptist's
father, their loss of speech lasted much longer. (Ezekiel 3:23-27;
24:27; 33:22; Luke 1:19-22) It is difficult to gauge how serious
such afflictions would have been had the Lord not intervened with
healing. I would like to argue that in such circumstances God
would always heal. However, many scholars believe that Jacob's
heavenly wrestler left both Jacob and my argument permanently
lame. (Genesis 32:24-32) Such mysteries highlight my ignorance,
bolstering my suspicion that there are causes of sickness I have
not even identified. Certainly in the realm of rare events one
might find almost anything. For Bruce Olson, lone missionary in
the jungles of South America, life-threatening illness was the
only thing keeping him alive. The savage he loved wanted to kill
him but superstition forbade the murder of anyone critically ill.
Chronic hepatitis not only saved Bruce's life, it played a key
role in winning over an enemy and proved a significant factor
in Bruce's eventual success.
God's leash, Satan's hammer, rod of correction, (Eg, Psalm 119:67,71)
black velvet, red herring, pruning hook, sin's fruit, mental trick,
badge of honour, springboard to service, glory aftermath, sealed
mystery - who knows the true character of your disability? God.
And with those who press him, he shares his secrets - on a need-to-know
basis. (Sorry about that last phrase, yet even that is comforting.
Seek, however. Your need to know may be greater than you think.)
Before abandoning you with this seething brew of possibilities,
I offer a suggested vantage-point from which to view the cauldron.
We should not exult infirmity, nor bow to it. Even if through
divine genius sickness often ends up more a surge than a scourge,
all affliction, like death, can be tracked back to Adam's sin.
(Romans 5:12; 8:18-23) If God ever uses sickness, it displays
his terrifying power: he can even compel evil to perfect his holy
purposes.
Regardless of whether Paul's 'thorn' was sickness, it has much
to teach us. Christ deflected the Devil's dart with such precision
that it punctured only that part of Paul that was in danger of
bloating with pride. Though hurled in Satanic wrath, it passed
through the scarred hands of Jesus and entered Paul as a manifestation
of divine love and wisdom. Nonetheless, we can so focus on the
good God squeezed out of this that we overlook the key elements.
Paul's discomfort originated with the Evil One and became necessary
because the sin of pride lurked dangerously near. (2 Corinthians
12:1-7)
Poor health is not God's first choice - Adam and Eve were created
whole. Neither is it his final solution - sickness has no place
in the world to come. (Revelation 21:4)
Aeneas was bedridden 'eight years, and was sick of the palsy'.
(Acts 9:33) 'After eight years, I'd be sick of the palsy, too,'
cracks some clown. Not necessarily. Remember Fanny Crosby. Remember
the British spinster in bed forty years with 'the 'flu'. 'Wilt
thou be made whole?' queried Jesus. (John 5:6, see also Luke 18:41)
For the long-term patient, full health often means an unnerving
disruption of lifestyle. Even when infirmity is spiritually beneficial,
we can dwell too long in that state. If we need a pride pricker,
we obviously have a problem with pride. If we need the pruning
power of sickness, it suggests inadequate self-restraint, insensitivity
to the Spirit's leading, or some other spiritual deficiency. We
should seek to overcome the deficiency so we no longer need our
sickness.
If you lie awake worrying about how they'll fit all your medical
conditions on your death certificate - even if you are so near
death you look like your passport photo - I believe you have a
right, almost a duty, to pray for healing. And unbelieving prayer
is wasted prayer.
Never give up your quest for healing. Remember the cripple who
habitually begged at the temple gate. Innumerable times, possibly
every year since his childhood, the Son of God must have walked
past this man. After more than forty years of disability, even
after the Messiah had left the planet, God healed him. (Acts 3:2,10;
4:22)
One final reassurance: agonising health problems can never thwart
the Almighty's love. It was somewhere in the midst of the apostle
Paul's amazing catalogue of trials that he made the triumphant
discovery that nothing - not deprivation, starvation, torture,
or lingering death - can remove us from the love of God. (Romans
8:35,38-39) Job's ailment was not allowed to be lethal and his
reward was great. (Job 2:6; 42:10 ff) Willie Burton's fever limited
his ministry but not God's work. I'm told a friend went in his
place and a Mission Station was established, though beyond that,
my source is silent. The intricacies are kept from me. I'm used
to that. But I know enough about God to know it worked out perfectly.
Tucked in the heart of the Bible sleeps a tiny psalm of priceless
truth. (Psalm 131) The singer confessed that as a mother denies
her baby access to her milk when it's time for her darling to
be weaned, so God sometimes denies us things we crave. Yet as
a weaned infant lies warm and secure in its mother's bosom, our
soul can nestle into God, not knowing why we have been denied
what we have clambered for, but content to draw love and comfort
from the Father's heart.
As the heavens soar far above us, high and unreachable, so is
God's wisdom. (Isaiah 55:8-9; Psalm 139:6; 147:5; Job 11:7-9;
Romans 11:33-34) Our tiny minds may understand the Father's ways
no more than a babe understands its mother, yet still we can rest
in him, bathed in the certainty that when the omnipotent, omniscient
Lord lets the inexplicable touch a child of his, it is a manifestation
of unfathomable love. In the hands of the One who wouldn't so
much as break a damaged reed or snuff a smoking wick, you are
safe. (Matthew 12:20)
Since our last review we have uncovered another set of hindrances
to ministry. If it involved just God and us, ministry would be
complex. Yet this is complicated many times over by the involvement
of other people and even demonic powers. Nevertheless, every impediment
to service will break under the weight of stubborn, faith-filled
prayer. It may take days, months or years, but it will happen
- provided we don't let doubt, disobedience or bitterness sap
our prayers of power.
Christians are surrounded by serious problems. For us, problems
have to be serious - if they smiled we'd see they have
no teeth.
Spiritually enthroned in heaven with Christ, we have instant access
to the Father. Though evil forces of incredible power impinge
upon us, resident within us is One greater than the combined forces
of hell. (1 John 4:4) So we are never helpless pawns in a battle
between spiritual superpowers. And divine omnipotence doesn't
sag when adversaries take human form or merge with psychological
factors. The origin of our difficulties may be outside us, but
not, in Christ, outside our sphere of influence.
We serve a God in whose presence impossibilities cringe in defeat.
Our mighty Lord can manipulate Satan like a puppet. Rest in the
love of God, and a hostile world becomes a feather-bed. 'You meant
if for evil, but God meant it for good' (Compare Genesis 50:20)
describes every calamity we could ever face. (Romans 8:28)
Hold on. Victory is certain.
More possibilities
Reason unknown
The story so far
Hear this Book: Audio Book
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