Letters From Grandpa #61

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 61

Dearest Grandchild,

In today’s letter let us focus on the way God made you. David wrote: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Ps 139:13-14)

Just like the Potter makes a vessel just the way He wants to, I believe God made you just the way He wanted to. When the disciples of Jesus saw a man who was born blind they asked: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Please pay careful attention to the answer of Christ: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . . but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:2-4).

Our Sovereign God did not make a mistake when He made the blind man, and He did not make a mistake when He made you. God is the Potter, and we are the clay. This analogy is quite familiar with students of the Scriptures. Jeremiah, for example, wrote: “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” (Jer 18:6). This is not just true of how God made Israel, but of God and everyone.

The original sin was rebellion. From the day that Lucifer was created he was proud of his beauty and determined to not submit to the authority of God (See Is. 14:12 - 15; Ez. 28:14 - 17). Since the whole world is under the influence of the wicked one (1 Jn. 5:19), we should not be surprised by rebellion against God whenever and wherever we find it. Take, for example, the brazen rebellion of the late Saul Alinsky. His book, Rules for Radicals, has been called the Bible of Community Organizers. It is interesting that he openly dedicated that book to Lucifer himself. Here is that dedication word for word: “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

In a previous generation, such an admission would have been the death knell for the book, but today the opposite is true. Rebellion against God is now “main stream”. Hillary Clinton, for example, was so interested in Saul Alinsky that she wrote a treatise about him when she was a student at Wellesley College. Barack Obama too was influenced by Rules for Radicals. Allinsky’s son wrote this in the Boston Globe in 2008: “Barack Obama’s training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.”

Remember, Lucifer, whom Allinsky recognized as the “first radical”, was a liar and the father of lies. Jesus said of him: “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Lucifer, as you know, is also known as Satan, and the Devil.

But our letter today is not about politics. It is about you, and the way God made you. It seems that a great many people, especially in the pagan world, are in a state of rebellion against the way God made them. Take, for example, the Flathead Indians encountered by Lewis and Clark. These primitive people didn’t like the round heads given to them by God and sought to “beautify” their children by compressing their little heads with boards to make them flat. With a little research you can discover that cranial shaping is common among pagan people all over the world. Some African tribes, however, used cords to re-shape their baby’s heads instead of boards.

The Ubangi Tribe in Africa doesn’t like the shape God gave to lips so when a girl arrives at puberty they take extreme measures to “correct” this problem. First, they take a hammer and chisel and knock out the two front teeth in her lower jaw. Then they cut a hole in her lower lip. Next they insert a clay plate in the lower lip to make it bigger. Eventually some women have stretched their lower lips to ten inches. Such a “beautiful” woman can now demand a very large bride price.. If you have the stomach for it, check out this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoKOso-xEo8

Then there is the process of “neck stretching” which typically begins with little girls about the age of two. Coils are added to stretch her neck until her shoulders are deformed. Ultimately these metal rings can weigh as much as 22 lbs. and when they are removed the poor girl finds it difficult to hold up her head.

Then there are the Chinese women who bound their feet, and also the 5,000 year old practice of tattooing the body to make it “beautiful”. It is also common among pagans to stretch ear lobes to “improve” their shape, and use nose plugs to make the nose “more beautiful”. In some cultures the teeth are sharpened and in others they are knocked out to “improve” appearances. In Africa the Dinka Tribe employs the local sorcerer to take a red hot knife and scar their faces to make them more “beautiful”. The elders of the Sepik River tribes in Papua, New Guinea use razor blades to cut the young men all over their bodies in a pattern that closely imitates the rough skin of an alligator. Need we go on?

Please, when you look in the mirror remember that God made you the way you are. The clay should never complain against the Potter. Jay Leno has a big chin, and Jimmy Durante had a big nose. Rather than have “corrective” surgery these men wisely accepted the way God made them and these physical attributes became assets instead of liabilities.

Paul too struggled with a “thorn in the flesh” which he asked God three times to take away. When God refused to answer that prayer it dawned on Paul that this “thorn” was actually an asset. The power of God was made perfect in Paul’s life by means of his weakness (2 Cor. 12:7 - 10).

Certainly there is nothing wrong with wearing glasses to help you see, or wearing retainers to straighten some teeth, but before you beautiful grand daughters knock out your lower teeth and insert clay plates to stretch your lower lip, please stop by and talk with your Grandpa about it.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce