My heart for a long time and my passion if you will for life is working with people with disabilities. As a Christian, I believe this to be my calling. If I could work with any one group, it would be working with people with disabilities and their families. Unfortunately, this is where the Church falls short. How many churches do you know that have any programs or even any special focus on people with disabilities? Do you know of any churches that have full time staff to minister to people with disabilities and their families? Mark 16:15 He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Does all the world really mean all? People will go all over the world and in all kinds of situations but if you start talking about disabilities, it is like you are talking about something that is an island to itself. Why? Specifically right now, I am thinking about the focus on mental illness with Robin Williams death. People are happy to pray for people with all kinds of physical conditions but if you start talking about mental illness it is like you are from a different planet. How many times have you heard a sermon or an extra emphasis on people with mental illness and their families? How often might they hear a verse like Mark 26:15 and wonder why no one reaches out to them in their world? Typically, there are three reactions within in the Church for mental illness. One view is mental illness is demonic in nature. Thus the demons must be cast out, the person must have some secret sin or their family does, etc. The second is that all mental illness must be psycho-jibberish. People make stuff up for attention and the like. The final is that mental illness is a physiological disorder. In this vein, the brain is a living organ much like your heart or thyroid and sometimes there are issues with that organ that results in illnesses and conditions. It is said that some would be quick to rationalize that someone with mental illness must have a demon but their mother taking blood pressure medicine for her malfunctioning organ is ok. 1Thessalonians 5:23: May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole SPIRIT, SOUL, and BODY be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.. So many times we look at body, soul and spirit individually but they are intertwined. When one is out of whack, it can affect the other two. The truth is that people need to be treated with love and respect. Just as one would pray for a person with a heart condition, one should be just as willing to pray for a person with schizophrenia. Positive change and truly helping others involves understanding them. People will say problems are just a problem of the mind, or just a problem of the heart, or just a problem of the soul. When you have a physiological problem, it can affect the other two areas and vice versa. Thus, people need to really think before being judgmental. I have never forgotten working with one of the sweetest people I ever met in church whose parents had been told that if they were right with God, their daughter would not have a disability. Rather than love and acceptance, they felt judgment and separation. One church even denied fellowship to them. If we can instead understand better about how things are interconnected and how mental illness and other disabilities come about then we will be less likely to make sad, horrible judgments of others. If you take a medication for something say like for migraines, then dont you dare judge someone who takes medication for anxiety or depression. If you do, you are a hypocrite. If you follow what Paul and others taught, you have no right to judge. I like this verse from James: Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you – who are you to judge your neighbor? In other terms, the Bible is very clear about who the Accuser of the Brethren is.....is that who you want to be lumped in with by your actions (or lack of) In the end, I hope Christians as a whole will truly practice the example Christ set before us. We should reach out to all folks, love them, and minister to them. We should not reject them or judge them due to their disabilities. I have been blessed to know and love people in my life with disabilities of all kinds including mental illness. The thing is....they have blessed me so much more that I feel I have ever been able to give back. People just want love and acceptance. Can we just drop the silliness and do that?
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 03:03:59 +0000
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