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Joni Eareckson was the Special Guest at NECF’s 25th Anniversary Celebrations. She spoke at the Anniversary Banquet, the National Pastors & Leaders Consultation on Nation Building and at a public meeting at Full Gospel Tabernacle, Subang Jaya. This is a summary of Joni’s message given during the Anniversary Banquet.
Anniversaries are milestones, signposts and memorials that mark the way. In 1 Samuel 7:12, Samuel raised an Ebenezer, a stone of remembrance and said to the people, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” Friends, today is not NECF’s anniversary only. July 30th, 2007 is also a most remarkable day for me personally. It was on this day exactly 40 years ago that I dove into the bay and broke my neck. I am so honoured and blessed that I should celebrating the anniversary of God’s graciousness in my life through this disability with your anniversary.
Is the anniversary of breaking my neck something amazing to celebrate? People don’t quite understand that and I don’t blame them. But when I look back on the milestones, memorials and signposts which brought me to the point where I can smile, not in spite of my problems, but because of my problems, I think of where it all began. More than 40 years ago, as a14-year-old child I opened my heart to Jesus Christ. I heard that Jesus was the source of that abundant life. But back then, when I was a teenager, the abundant life meant good grades in school, a wonderful boyfriend, no fights with my sister, and my parents would get off my back about doing chores. Being a Christian was all about me and all the good things that God was going to do for me. After 3 years when I was ready to graduate from high school, I was miserable because I was disobedient, everything was me-centred. And I remember praying a prayer right before my high school graduation in 1967, “Lord God, I am making a mess of my life. I don’t want to confess my sins on Sunday morning but go right back to what I was doing before. Oh God, I don’t want to live that way. Would You do something in my life to jerk my heart right side up, to ge me seriously following you as my Lord because God I don’t want to be a hypocrite. Please do something in my life.” Two months later, on July 30th, 1967, a young 17-year-old girl went swimming, took a dive and crushed her head against a sandbar, snapping her neck, crushing her vertebra, leaving her paralyzed without the use of her hands or legs.
As I lay in that hospital bed day after day, week after week, month after month, I began to wonder, why did God rescue me? I would flip the Bible this way and that (with a stick in my mouth) desperately hoping to find answers. I knew there were answers in the Bible somewhere. I just wasn’t certain where to find them. I would lay there and think that when I took that dive, God must have been off somewhere, listening to the prayers of more obedient Christians. Maybe He got fed-up with me because I was a hypocrite. Maybe He was off somewhere, tending to the prayers of other people who had cancer, or muscular dystrophy, or maybe He was in the Middle East somewhere fulfilling prophecy. But He wasn’t on that raft. I pictured that it was Satan who snuggled behind me, put his foot in the small of my back and gave a hard shove, and off I went into the water breaking my neck. And just at that point, God turned around and “Oh! Would you look at what happened to Joni?” He was caught off-guard. Satan has floundered His plans for my life! From that point on, God had to grab a mop and a bucket, hammer and nail and glue and come after me and try desperately to work all this out together for my good. That’s the view of a very immature 17- year-old Christian.
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Joni with husband Ken Tada
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I found a friend, a young man called Steve. He had heard that I was a young quadriplegic looking for insights in the Bible. So he helped me get deep into the Word of God. The very first question I challenged him with was: “How can this be God’s Will?” He answered my question by reading 1 Cor. 1:20. He said, “Joni, I am not sure if I can answer all your questions but just listen to this. ‘For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘yes’ in Christ.’” He then paraphrased it. “Joni, no matter how many questions you have, they are answered in Jesus Christ.” “Look”, he said, “think of Jesus. Was it God’s Will for Jesus to go to the cross?” I thought long and hard about that. Well, of course it was. Every Sunday school kid knows that it was God’s Will for Jesus to have died on the cross. How else would any of us be saved? But then Steve pressed me further on that. “How can the Father allow such an awful thing to happen to His Son? If we can find answers for His life, then they will suffice for yours.” He flipped to Act 4:28 where “they did what God’s power and Will had decided beforehand should happen”. And then he told me, “Joni, God specializes in aborting devilish schemes always to serve His own ends and accomplish His own purposes. And the world’s worst murder becomes the world’s only salvation.”
The Devil’s mind was probably to shipwreck my faith. God’s motive was to turn this headstrong, stubborn young girl into a young woman who has learned to lean on Jesus each and every day. When I wake up in the morning after 40 years of quadriplegia, I would say, “Oh God, I am so tired, my bones are aching, I just don’t knowif I can face this, and all I can think of is how I will feel when I get my head back on the pillow this evening. Oh God, I have no strength but You do, I have no abilities but You do, I have no resources for this day but You do. I can’t do this thing called quadriplegia but I can do all things though You as You strengthen me. So God show up big time in my life today because I need You desperately.” Suffering is like a sheepdog that snaps at my heels and drives me to the cross each day and every morning when I am not naturally inclined to go.
I often have people come up to me wanting to pray for my physical healing. And I never refused a prayer. But if you want to pray for me to get out of this wheelchair, I would tell you this: “Really I would love to walk, but there’s something I would love more, much more. Would you ask God to heal me of my pride? Would you ask Him to miraculously remove my self-centredness, my stubbornness, my laziness in prayer, my slothfulness in reading the Word? Would you please ask Him to miraculously change that?” Because friends, there are more important things in life than walking or having the use of your hands. And as Christians we should want to be holy as He is holy. When you die to sin, that’s when you become alive to God. Absolutely alive. His joy spills and splashes over heaven’s walls, filling your heart with so much peace and power and perspective. And you learn to see the preciousness of your pain because it pushes you deeper into the inner sanctum of inner fellowship with Him. And it is there you enjoy a more intimate fragrance of union with your Lord and Saviour. I am grateful for this wheelchair. Friends, of all things to waste on earth, do not waste your sufferings.
So many souls are trapped in darkness and despair around us. There is so much misery, spiritual and physical, in this world. You and I have the answers, the hope and the Gospel. I am so glad that in the next 25 years NECF’s focus won’t be just on nation building but soul winning. And it begins with prayer and going out into the alleys, highways and byways and finding those who do not know Jesus and bringing them in. So tonight I raise my Ebenezer on this anniversary of crossing the Jordan and believe that God will do pleasing things tomorrow. I challenge you to raise the Ebenezer tonight as well. |
