While there may not be intended prejudice against people with disabilities, prejudice can occur simply by giving preference to able-bodied people. In this series, three ableist perspectives will be scrutinised, and a more nuanced perspective will be presented.
In his book, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Make Us Just? Timothy Keller is much more considered, and helpful, than my response to the injustice I’ve seen. Keller seeks to answer four main questions: what is justice? For whom is justice? Why should Christians engage in acts of justice? And perhaps most crucially, how should we do acts of justice?
We have seen how from disorder God made the heavens and the earth. This gives us a rock-solid basis for confidence that God can and will bring order to disorder in our lives. Whether it is personal, political, spiritual in our relationship with God, or devotional. God’s purposes for us may not be as we would wish. But we can be confident that it will be for his glory, and better than any of us can possibly imagine.
God promises through Zechariah that even the most vulnerable who are faithful to him will be invincible, like mighty warriors. Yes, we might take some knocks, and what we endure may be unpleasant. But God creates order from disorder, and the order that God creates will be far superior to anything we’ve had before.
To avoid burnout, Ash reminds us that we are not God. Unlike God, we need sleep, days off, friends, refreshment (inward renewal). We need to avoid the trap of seeking renown and glory. We need to be mindful that our ministry is worth it, even when things don’t go to plan, and that it is God’s work. Finally, we need to delight in the grace of being in a saving relationship with God, and not in his gifts.
The good news is, no matter how much of a mess we’ve made, no matter how disordered things become, no matter how distant we’ve become from God, we are not beyond his reach. God can make order from our disorder. No mess is too big to clean up.
Perhaps some of us have realised that the disorder we experience is due to the choices that we have made and have come to believe that there is now nothing left for us except disorder. This simply isn’t true. God can bring order from our spiritual disorder. God can bring us to a state of order better than what we can possibly imagine. God can release us from any form of oppression and abundantly bless us with justice and mercy.
Our sense of who we are is disordered. Yet, as increasingly disordered as the modern West is becoming, we can be confident that God is working to create a greater order that locates our identity in him.
The NDIS was intended to empower those who are most vulnerable in our communities – those with disabilities. For some this is true. Many people with disabilities are enjoying liberties and living fulfilling lives that they did not have previously. However, search any news source on the NDIS and a dark side to this empowerment utopia is discovered. The NDIS is making the most vulnerable in our communities more vulnerable. What is going wrong?
There are implications to knowing how God is our creator. The Bible wants us to understand and to have it first and foremost in our minds that God is a creator. This brings out the beauty of creator God bringing order from disorder.
