One email put it like this: I'm just wondering if you would answer the question about handicapped babies differently if given more time? I thought I heard you say, "God does knit them that way (handicapped)..." and then you made the excellent point that these precious people - so born - cause us not to be so self-centered....If I had a handicapped child and had to live with that 24/7, I'm not sure I would be comforted by the thought that God knitted my child in my womb that way. On the contrary, I would probably be angry with God for choosing that life for me.
My response to this thoughtful email is below. I wonder if you agree?
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Let me dare take up the important question you raised. Namely...[Did I hear] you say, "God does knit them that way (handicapped)..." , and then you wondered if I would answer differently if I had more time to process the larger issues, and not be on-the-spot (so to speak). Candidly, I did say this because I anticipated the question (as you know, most good teachers try to anticipate what questions may be asked when presenting any new idea or material. I'm working at trying to be "good" at this, though I've a ways to go).
So, how could I give such a response to the question raised?
First, I agree with your understanding that in a fallen world (spiritually and physically), disease and death seem to indiscriminately take its toll on everyone. As Billy Graham once said, "The stats on death are pretty consistent. One out of every one person dies." And yes, it feels very random, with wild-card dice in the genetic pool compounded by all the unhealthy things we either breathe in or eat. More broadly, good people tragically die (police officers die leaving a family of wife and kids while the drunk driver somehow lives) and committed-to-evil people seem to live longer than they deserve (cf. Psalm 73).
But the question remains - is what happens in wombs actually "random"? Again, it feels like it, but Scripture puts a different (and more truthful) frame around the creation of human life, according to Psalm 139. No human life is random; God continues to create human embryos which bear His image and are the product of his hands' knitting. Such a viewpoint is hugely out of step with present-day conventional wisdom, but then again (Isaiah 55:8-9) God dares to tell humanity that "My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." Since (as I am convinced) Scripture is God-breathed and thus a very personal expression of truth as God sees it, no human life can be rightly seen as random.
Second, it seems to clearly follow from this that even as human beings are being "knitted" in a physically compromised universe (again, with compromised genetics, disease, etc.) by the hands of God, that He must be also involved in those children who are born with what we call "defects" or "deformities." Admittedly, we shrink from this very idea. We wonder, If God's hands are involved, and He is "good," why would He not do the corrective work needed so that every baby is born healthy?
Should we take the view that He is NOT involved in the knitting together of deformed children--that His hands are not involved--we land in Rabbi Kushner territory, to wit, that God too is grieved when "bad things happen to good people," but He can't do anything about it. With all due respect to Mr. Kushner, his approach is not only uncomforting, but it is remarkably unBiblical.
Biblically, at least in two other places, God takes responsibility for defects. To Moses He declares, "Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?" Notice the language is not, "I permit this to happen to some (i.e., mutedness, blindness, deafness)," but rather "Who has made...who makes." Active tense. Sobering.
Also, you'll recall that one day the disciples wondered about a man who had been "born blind" (cf. John 9). Their framework -- the CW -- was that someone had screwed up (i.e., "sinned" - that is sin and fallenness was the cause, and blindness was the divine punishment). "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus rejects the two possible answers, and goes outside the box for the third. "It was not that this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him," and then Jesus adds, "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no man can work." As I read Jesus' response, I conclude Jesus saying, "My Father (God) so willed that his man suffer blindness for decades until this moment, so that God's works can be displayed in and through his life (and healing)." Briefly put, God made him to be born blind.
Your tender empathy is well-placed. If I had a handicapped child and had to live with that 24/7, I'm not sure I would be comforted by the thought that God knitted my child in my womb that way. On the contrary, I would probably be angry with God for choosing that life for me.
Surely, we all might struggle with, "Why did God give me/us this overwhelming challenge? Surely He can't be in this" we might conclude. Yet, for example, one of the couples in our church, whose daughter has been severely handicapped mentally and physically since birth, approached me after the morning service. Once again they demonstrated that, as hard as it has been over the past 30 years, they've adopted God's sovereign hand in their experience. "You were on target today, David," Kevin kindly said. As difficult as struggling with a less-than-fully healthy child can be -- and I don't diminish the difficulty one iota -- there is a good sovereign God that has greater purposes for those who are knitted together in ways that are less than ideal.
Well, I've bent your ear longer than I have a right to. If you're still reading, you deserve a DQ Blizzard of your choice! But perhaps this helps clarify my answer.
When Paul asked God 3 times to remove "this thorn in my flesh" which he described as a "messenger of Satan to buffet me," God answered him three times, "No...but my grace will be sufficient for you." Paul then concludes, "If that is true, then I will rather boast in my weakness, that the power of God might be seen in this" (cf. 2 Corinthians 12). Wow...again, not the CW we often hear. But this is the framework God's Word puts around these things for us.
Thank you for asking about these things...I hope we can continue to interact on important ideas.
