What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, “Stop, you’re doing it wrong!” Does the pot exclaim, “How clumsy can you be?” How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father, “Why was I born?” or if it said to its mother, “Why did you make me this way?” [Isaiah 45:9-12 (NLT)]
Writing about my granddaughter yesterday made me think about birth defects. In actuality, all of us have what could be called birth defects—it’s just that some are more obvious than others. While all of God’s children have defects, none are defective. I consider a young man at our Florida church. Cerebral palsy keeps him strapped into a wheel chair and his physical limitations are immense. There is, however, nothing defective about this bright young man. I ponder the enthusiastic grocery worker with Down’s syndrome. She may have an extra chromosome, but there is nothing defective about her. I think of a fellow at church who has no ears. He may be deaf but there is nothing defective about him, nor is there anything defective about a friend’s grand born with only a partial arm and hand or my grand, with her heart defects and learning issues. They are all marvelously made—different from others, but no less wonderful.
Have you ever given any thought to how you were made? From biology 101, we know that a sperm and an egg met. That egg, however, was one of about 1 million your mom had at birth, one of some 300,000 she had at puberty, and one of the 300 to 400 eggs that she’d ever ovulate. So on your mom’s side, you were one in a million. As to that tiny sperm that won the race to the egg—there were about 150 million (or more) other sperm that could have fertilized it if they’d been stronger swimmers. If your conception had occurred in another month, it would have been a totally different egg and another one of 150 million or more sperm and you wouldn’t be you—you’d be someone entirely different! Apparently, the odds of you existing as you are about one in 400 trillion…and I don’t think that takes in the probability of your parents ever meeting let alone loving one another enough to make a baby! There is nothing haphazard about the way we got put together. We are, indeed, marvelously made.
I had a friend who called her son “Oops!” because he wasn’t planned. My mother-in-law responded that in her day, before effective birth control, most babies were “Oops!” While pregnancies may not be planned, there is nothing accidental about the way we are made. When I was little, I asked my mother why I had a belly button. She told me that babies were assembled in heaven and, as they moved along the assembly line, God inspected them before sending them to their earthly mothers. After carefully looking over each baby, He gave a poke to its tummy and said “You’re perfect!” Our belly buttons were His stamp of approval. Her explanation, while neither biologically nor theologically correct, reminds me that God makes no mistakes—there are no “oops!” on His heavenly assembly line.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. [Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT)]
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What makes us happy? Could it be a phone call from a good friend? Is it when we’ve made a profit in the stock market or received a large commission check? Are we pleased when our checkbook balances on the first attempt or when the accountant informs us that a large tax refund will be in the mail? Are we happy when someone sends us flowers or our child brings home a good report card? Does finding the ideal gift for our spouse’s birthday or receiving the perfect gift for ours give us happiness? Would we be happier if we could enjoy two weeks at a luxury resort or had a state-of-the-art home theatre or gourmet kitchen?
From today’s verse, you might think I’m going to say that God will never give us more than we can bear. That Christianese sentiment, however, comes from 1 Corinthians 10 and is about temptation, not difficulties and afflictions. The belief that God will never give us any burden or challenge we can’t bear puts the emphasis on us and our strength rather than where it should be—on God and His power! In 2 Corinthians, Paul wrote of being so burdened beyond his strength that he despaired of even living. Clearly, there will be times in our lives when we will be given far more than we can possibly bear by ourselves.
Last Friday, a crazed young man attacked a Munich shopping mall and ten were left dead. A few days earlier, an ax-wielding teen on a rampage hacked at passengers on a German train and, less than two weeks ago, 84 people died in Nice, France, after a terrorist plowed a truck into a crowd of Bastille Day celebrants. My 16-year old granddaughter has been living in Germany the last three weeks and my first reaction to these horrendous incidents was to get her home so she could be safe here with us. Unfortunately, she would be no safer here than there. I’m sure families thought their loved ones were safe last month in that Orlando nightclub where 50 were killed and another 53 injured or when they walked into their classroom at Umpqua Community College last October and nine were carried out on stretchers while another nine were carried out in body bags. Parishioners had no reason to fear when attending a prayer meeting in Charleston last year until a man opened fire and killed nine of them. While writing this devotion, news just broke of bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, that left 80 dead and 231 wounded. Mass acts of hate and terror are becoming ever more frequent and it both alarms and sickens me that these horrific events are beginning to seem commonplace to us.
Like all children, my grands are growing up and new challenges face them every day. The eldest is now driving and old enough to date. Come fall, she’ll be looking at colleges, two others will start junior high school, one enters kindergarten and the youngest is off to nursery school. Where did the time go?
Devotions of the Heart 