Today’s post comes from my friend Jimmy Snowden. I went to college with Jimmy and have always appreciated his heart for Jesus. When I read this I asked him if I could share it. I thought it helpful.
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What is the ultimate tragedy?
I had to come face to face with this question about 10 years ago.
My wife, Kristal, gave birth to a stillborn baby. Doctors and nurses rushed to the delivery room. They quickly revived our son, but as soon as they revived him, he entered into a seizure that they couldn’t stop. They didn’t think he was going to make it. They rushed him to a superior hospital to do all they could. They were able to stabilize his health, but told us that he would be marked by the effects of a brain injury for the rest of his life. He is now 12 years old and can’t talk, walk, stand, sit, eat, or drink. He has the physical ability of a 4 month old.
When James was first born we prayed for God to heal him. I remember the early days when we prayed for healing not knowing what the future would look like. We still pray for God to heal him.
I’m not sure what the exact day was or where I was, but I remember it was in the early days. I was praying for God to heal James – to give him the ability to eat and walk and talk, and to take his seizures away.
As I was praying, a question came into my mind: What if God were to grant James the gift of physical healing and James were to reject God after such a great gift? God is under no compulsion to heal James. We often times think that God “has” to do these things. He doesn’t.
It was at that point that I realized that the greatest tragedy would not be if God didn’t heal James, but that if God did give James the ability to walk and talk and eat and drink, and James used his speech to curse God’s name. The greatest tragedy would be if God gave him the ability to walk and use his hands to hold things and manipulate his world, only to use those abilities for self-seeking purposes – at the expense of others, as an act of high rebellion against God. What if God were to give him the ability to eat and drink and he were to use this God-given ability to drink himself and drug himself into the gutter of life? What if God were to give him the ability to speak only to use it to lie and speak hurtful things and pledge allegiance to anyone other than Christ?
What is the greatest tragedy? The greatest tragedy is not James’ severe handicap. The greatest tragedy is the thought of taking what God has given us to glorify Him and use these abilities and tools to serve self at the expense of others, to the dishonoring of the name of Christ.
As a result of this intellectual crisis, I began to see that if this was true in regard to James, it was true in regard to me and everyone else who is not handicapped. James’ situation just makes the reality more obvious. If God were to heal James, it would be as plain as the day is long that James’ ability to walk, talk, eat, and drink are gifts of God’s grace, and should be used to serve and honor Christ as a note of gratitude for such a great gift.
But here’s where this applies to you and me. Just because God gave you these abilities from the get-go does not mean that these abilities are any less from God. If you weren’t able to talk or walk for decade upon decade and you and your family were to pray and pray and pray and God were to suddenly heal you, wouldn’t you feel the need to live a life of grateful service, using those abilities not to serve self, but God and others?
What I am suggesting is that whether God gave you those abilities from the get-go or not, those abilities are given to you by God – and can be taken away from you at any moment.
The greatest tragedy is not for God to not heal James. The greatest tragedy would be for God to grant James such great ability and then for James to use these abilities to pursue a life of rebellion against God, in the face of such goodness of God to him.
The greatest tragedy for you and me is for you to have received such gifts – gifts that God does not give to everyone (exhibit A: James), and to use those gifts to serve yourself at the expense of others.
Imagine if someone were to give you a financial gift of $1,000,000.00 and you were to use this money to purchase a top of the line firearm and then use it to put to death the one who gave you the financial gift. This is what it is to have received the gift of intelligence, physical ability, speech, etc., and then to use these abilities for your own selfish desires, to the dishonoring of the very one who gave you all this.
Whether you are a Christian or a non-Christian, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you don’t use all that God has given you to bless and honor and serve Him. To use what He has given you to serve yourself without a thought to Him is the very essence of ingratitude and sin.
The greatest tragedy is not for God to not heal. The greatest tragedy is for God to heal you and then to use the abilities that come with healing to serve yourself to the dishonoring of the name of the One who healed you.
In other words, the greatest good is not progress or success, but gratitude and faithfulness.
1 Corinthians 4:7; “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”
Romans 1:21–22; “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”
