Beyond The Status Quo
Today marks a very important anniversary for me.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and maybe “anniversary” is not the best word to use, but today 53 years ago, I dove into that shallow water and broke my neck. It meant a life of paralysis, quadriplegia, using a wheelchair without use of my hands or my legs. And as I’ve shared many times, it was so depressing at first, but through prayer, through the reading of God’s Word, through the support of family and friends, I came up out of it, all the better, all the richer and all the happier for it because of what God did through my disability.
But I tell you, it wasn’t without hard work. Yes, God poured out his grace, that is his special favor; he gave me the want to; he gave me the motivation, the strength; he gave me the ability. But I had to partner with him in seizing that grace from him and making it my own. Yes, God gives enabling grace, but we have to appropriate it. And that meant I just could not sit in my wheelchair feeling discouraged and full of self-pity. ’Cause the grace of God required me to work to rise up out of that self-pity. I’m such a good example of 1 Corinthians 15:10, where it says, “Whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me – and not without results. For I have worked harder…yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace.” So, there you go. As I mark the anniversary of my diving accident, I celebrate all the many times God gave me grace, and I also celebrate the disciplines of taking hold of that grace. Yes, the Bible in Joshua chapter 23 says, “You are to hold fast to the LORD your God.” But the Bible also says that God holds us fast; he holds us with his righteous right hand and he will not let us go.
So, as I think back on 53 years of quadriplegia, today I am asking the Lord Jesus to continue to pour out his grace – that is his special favor – on me. Because I want to keep growing, I want to keep changing. I want more faith when I pray; I want to believe more; I want to be more bold in witnessing, and I want to be more quick to confess my faults to others, especially my husband. Most of all, I want to keep squeezing every big and little lesson I can possibly squeeze out of this paralysis of mine. I may be 53 years a quadriplegic, but this ain’t no time to slack off or settle for the status quo, because I have by no means arrived when it comes to living for the Lord in this wheelchair. As 1 Corinthians 15 says, I want to work harder…yet not I, but God who works through me by his grace.
And may I challenge you to do the same? As we deal with the aftermath of coronavirus, let’s not settle back into what was the status quo back in early March. Let’s not become sleepy under Satan’s lullaby. Like the apostle Paul says, let’s strive; let’s press on. Let’s ask the spirit of Jesus to wake us up, shake us by the shoulders. Let’s ask God to give us a hunger and a greater thirst for his Word, a bigger delight in prayer, fellowship, worship, witnessing. You know if my words today have touched your heart, you can make this anniversary of my disability even more meaningful if you would but tell me that you, too, want to move beyond the status quo. That you want to strive to work hard as God works his grace in and through you. Tell me about it today, would you?, at joniradio.org. Click contact us and I would be thrilled to know that my story today has spurred you on in your walk with Jesus. So, tell me about it at joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends
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