Beloved,
It was probably not the first time I had read the verse, but it was the first time I had really read it. God’s slew of questions to Moses were like a wrecking ball plowing into my understanding of physical disability.
“Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Ex. 4:11).
I had been taught that it was never God’s will for His people to suffer and that disabilities were from the devil. But what a mercy when God’s word decimates our preconceived notions and cute theological constructs.
During Tessa and I’s engagement, I encountered a God who doesn’t just allow muteness, deafness, and blindness; He is the one who brings it about just as He brings about the ability to speak, hear, and see. He is just as much the God of disabilities as He is the God of abilities! And what is particularly amazing (as we will see on Sunday when we look at this text in its broader context) is that He delights to use our inabilities to display His ability.
Most Christians are familiar with the poetry of John Milton (1608-1674), but few realize that the majority of his greatest compositions were written after he became blind. As you might imagine, Milton struggled with complaining about his disability. He often felt useless, and once wrote a sonnet about it entitled “On His Blindness.” In it he poetically expressed his fear that his loss of light (i.e., blindness) would cause the single talent God had entrusted him with to go to waste. But here is how the sonnet ends:
God doth not need
Either man’s work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Sometimes poor Christians are so debilitated in this life that all they can do is stand (or lay in bed?) and wait. Though they might feel useless, their standing and waiting serves Him well as they do it in faith.
Often our abilities can deceive us into thinking we don’t need God and that He needs us. But the marvelous lesson God has for us in our inabilities is that we desperately need Him and He will get along just fine without us. That is a vital lesson to learn, for it is only then, when we are cast upon Him under the sense of our inadequacy, that God can display His all-sufficient grace and power, even as we do nothing but patiently stand.
I’m looking forward to thinking more about this with you on Sunday!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick