Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 27
The 2014 movie The Drop Box documents the story of a
church in South Korea with an amazing ministry to disabled,
abandoned children. The ministry began when the pastor
of the church and his wife gave birth to a child with severe
deformities and brain damage. At birth, the child had
growing off his cheek a lump the size of a second head. He
would never be able to walk, talk, feed, or bathe himself.
That he required 14 years of surgeries and therapies before
he could be released from the hospital forced the family to
sell their home to pay for his medical bills. As you watch the
movie, you can’t help but think, “Put the poor thing out of
his misery.” If ever there was a poorly made piece of pottery,
“an object of wrath made for destruction,” this child would
surely seem to be it. Yet God had a purpose for that child’s
life. Like the words Moses says to Pharaoh, quoted by Paul
here in verse 17, “For this very purpose I raised you up, in
order that I might demonstrate in you, my power, and in
order that my name might be proclaimed far and wide in all
the earth.”
Through that deformed child, the pastor and his wife learned
the value of every human life. They have treated their child
with great dignity, and it led them and their church to a
ministry of rescuing and raising other disabled children.
Abandoning babies (especially disabled ones) in dumpsters
or back alleys is a huge problem in South Korea, so the
church created a Drop Box—an incubated receptacle where
desperate mothers can anonymously place their baby, who
is then transported through the exterior wall and into the
shelter of the church. Thus the disabled orphans are given a
chance in life and raised in love. At the time The Drop Box
was filmed, 500 babies had been saved in this way, and many
of them have grown to be well-adjusted members of society.
All this goodness came about because of one child whom
God allowed to be born with such severe disadvantages.
The Bible never explains why there is disease, inequity, and
unfairness in this world. It is a broken, fallen world. But God
is calling those of us who have received God’s mercy to show
God’s mercy to others. The weakness we see in others should
soften our hearts with compassion and draw us to their aid,
and the weakness we see in ourselves should humble our
pride and draw us to receiving help from others. God wants
the weak, fragile pottery of this world to teach compassion
to society, and God wants the seeming objects of wrath to be
honored through the ministry of objects of mercy. And in this
way God not only brings a broken world back together but
also, in the process, weaves a beautiful tapestry out of the
glorious and inglorious parts of our humanity.
PRAYER
Abba Father, Thou art the Potter, We are the clay. May we be
content with our created limitations; strengthen us with Thy
mercy where we are insufficient. And lead us also to others,
especially the weaker vessels of Thy Creation, that the mercy
we show them may bring glory to Thee. Mold us and fashion
us all into the image of Jesus Thy Son. Amen.
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021
The Rev. Elizabeth Wallace ’07
SCRIPTURE
Romans 10:1-13
1 Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for
them is that they may be saved. 2 I can testify that they have
a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. 3 For, being ignorant
of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking
to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s
righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law so that there
may be righteousness for everyone who believes. 5 Moses
writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law,
that “the person who does these things will live by them.”
6 But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not
say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to
bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’”
(that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it
say? “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart”
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because if you
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one
confesses with the mouth and so is saved. 11 The scripture
says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the
same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on
him. 13 For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved.”
DEVOTIONAL
“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (v. 8).
In the movie You’ve Got Mail there’s a line in which the main
character, the owner of a bookshop, says, “When you read
a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way
that no other reading in your whole life does.”
As a child, in the evenings I would watch my parents and
sister read and become entranced by the words on the page.
Ever since I myself learned to read, I’ve been transfixed by the
power of words. I remember going into my older sister’s room
(when she was away at a friend’s house) to read not her diary,
but her Bible. I knew there was something special about
those words in particular, and I couldn’t get enough of them.
In Jeremiah 31:33, God talks about the new covenant
that will be written on the hearts of God’s people. This
new covenant won’t be engraved on tablets of stone, but
engraved on our hearts. When Scripture becomes part of our
daily life, it shows up at unexpected times. We might find
ourselves reciting a familiar psalm as we wait for results at the
doctor’s office. We might hear the words of 1 Corinthians 13
when we are feeling impatient and unkind. And these words
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