My Black Thumb Meets Ecclesiastes

We challenge our human habit of guessing people’s limits and choose a God lens that sees every person as designed with intention and purpose. We connect Ecclesiastes 11 to disability ministry and remind ourselves that our job is to plant and cultivate while God handles what we cannot know. 
• the disability inclusion gap between churches and families 
• Ecclesiastes 11:5–6 and the humility of “you do not know” 
• why waiting for perfect conditions keeps us from sowing 
• the seed metaphor as gospel accessibility and discipleship 
• answering “what if they can’t understand?” with obedience to go and tell 
• God’s sovereignty and our responsibility to create an environment for growth 
If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the indispensable-people blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.

Transcript

Welcome And The Inclusion Gap

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, hey, my name is Tracy Coral, and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a pastor, a teacher, a missionary, a mom, a wife, and I believe that every person should have access to the gospel so that they can know Christ, grow in him, and serve him with the gifts that he has given. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 15 to 20% of every community. And over 85% of those individuals do not attend church. 90% of pastors believe that they are a disability-friendly church, but only 20% of parents and families agree. Let's dive deep into hard topics, big questions, perceptions, stereotypes, and so much more.

Picking Up The God Lens

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Hey, hey, and welcome to this episode of Indispensable People. Today we're looking at some scripture. We're talking about the God of the universe, the creator of all things with intention and purpose, and our failed human perspective that impacts life and how we need to pick up the God lens to really see the people that God had created and the intentions that he had. A few weeks ago, I was listening to a sermon that was titled Unseen Potential. And they kind of went in a different direction than how it actually hit me, but God can use someone's message to really trigger some thinking in my own mind. And I wanted to share that with you because of how truly important that I really felt like this message was. So the scripture was Ecclesiastes 11, 5 through 6. And it says, as you do not know the path of the wind or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God. Show your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.

Seeds And Solomon’s New Perspective

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So just a thought. Seeds. So this scripture takes me to thinking about seeds. And when I think about seeds, I think about plants. And when I think about plants, I think about my black thumb. I am really great at keeping plants alive when they were already fake to begin with. For whatever reason, I'm just not a gardener. However, my mom was. My mom, when I was little, we had a garden. There were vegetables, there were all kinds of things. She even canned. We had plants all throughout the house, spider plants, aloe plants, just plants galore. Okay. So I always say it skipped a generation. And if you want to keep a plant alive, you're going to have to talk to my son Noah. So in this scripture that brought me to think about seeds and planting and what it takes to cultivate, we also have to recognize that Solomon was writing, he had been writing about a life here under the sun, living on the earth, with a sense of despair, boredom, and a whole lot of dissatisfaction. Almost as if he was stuck being one of my plants. The further into Solomon's writing that we go, we the more we see that he starts to get drawn back into God, and that becomes the the picture. And everything starts to have a new perspective. And that's where we're landing in this scripture. And the thing is, we have to, he came to this realization that life without God is unfulfilling. But we also have to keep in mind that this new perspective didn't mean that Solomon discovered all the answers to life's problems or, you know, questionings. So in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes, he's going to admit that there are a lot of things that he doesn't understand. And really, and he repeats that phrase four different times in the verses, which includes the one that I, you know, just shared with you. And you see the phrase, for you know not. And Solomon says that four times that there are things in life that we don't understand. And so I would say, Solomon, Satan, right? There's so many things in life I don't understand, I don't get, I don't know. I continuously experience a God that I have studied, that I have grown in, and I am continuously amazed by him. So I, there are lots of things in life

Fear, Perfectionism, And Planting Anyway

SPEAKER_00 4:55

that I don't understand. But then Solomon shows us what happens to people who don't know and don't understand. And there are a couple things, right? But in verse four, it says, He who observes the wind will not sow, and who regards the clouds will not reap. Basically saying that, listen, people who don't understand, they become paralyzed by fear, and they sit there waiting for the perfect circumstances in life before taking a step forward. Sound familiar to anybody? So here's the thing, and the recognition that comes there are no perfect circumstances. Whether we're talking about a baby being formed in the womb or a seed being planted, there's a common denominator when we consider this, and that's fertilization. As the body of Christ, we have gospel seeds to plant, and there's only one guarantee. If you don't plant the seed, there's no growth. So God breathes life into his creation, he knows their full potential, and we get to help fertilize the seed so that it can grow into the potential that God has intended.

Disability Ministry And Gospel Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 6:01

So, why am I sharing this? What does that have to do with disability ministry? And a couple of things that I experience on a regular basis. When I go into churches, there are a couple of questions that I hear often. And one of them is how do you know if they understand? What if they can't understand? First of all, as a human, and then and being the person and the that did not create those individuals, that did not design them, who doesn't fully understand their purpose and God's plan with it, with the person, I can't know, right? But scripture has given commands like go and tell. It doesn't say accept for, or if you don't think they will know, or if they won't understand, it says go and tell. So the responsibility lands on me to share the gospel. The responsibility of how that gospel is received and what that person can understand is on God. So I say all this to say that when we approach disability ministry, we need to understand that God is sovereign. And he has a plan and a purpose for them. It is not my job to determine what that is. It is not my job to decide whether or not they're valuable, worthy, or can participate in the things that God has. My job is to put some water on it, to make sure it has sunshine, to make sure that the environment that the seed is in has every opportunity to grow. That is the responsibility that I carry. And the only thing that I can stand on knowing is if I don't water it, I don't plant it, I don't create that environment with sunshine for it to grow, then it doesn't grow. So the unseen potential is the things I don't understand, the things I don't know. But that doesn't mean that the potential isn't there. So as the church, we give the optimal setting, the accessible gospel, so that God's work that has already begun in that person when they were designed, when they were woven together in their mother's womb, the church can cultivate it. The church can foster that growth, the church can provide optimal environment, optimal settings so that the person can receive when the gospel is accessible and that they can grow and they can be discipled and they can fulfill the potential and the rules that God had set out before them. When you look at a person, you don't know their full potential. Again, you didn't design them. You didn't, you didn't create them. You are not the one who picked and chose all the pieces and parts that make that person a person. God is, God does. And again, he is sovereign and he has plans and purposes. And none of them are wasted. But we as the church get to help cultivate, get to help grow, get to help disciple and make the gospel accessible so that each person can fulfill the potential that God has placed in them. That is our responsibility.

Practical Next Steps And Resources

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So that every person has the opportunity to know Christ, to grow in him, and to serve him. If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the indispensable people blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.