Take my life and let it be
Consecrated Lord to thee.
Take my moments and my days
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
I love this hymn by Frances Ridley Havergal. I love the way it encapsulates that every part of our lives—our hands, our feet, our time, our money, our minds, our wills—should be lived in God’s service (Rom 12:2). But how do we live lives in service of the King when our bodies fail us daily?
Before I had a chronic illness this all felt fairly straightforward. It required thought and sacrifice, but it wasn’t too hard to use what God had given me to honour him. I could teach kids’ church, run a playgroup, lead a Bible study, have people over for lunch, read the Bible with someone, go to church, chat over morning tea. I could seek to tell others in my workplace about Jesus, I could go on beach mission (I didn’t do all of these things at the same time, I might add!).
But with chronic vestibular migraines, I can’t easily be in a room full of talking people, let alone children. I can’t reliably turn up to Bible study, let alone lead one. I can’t manage the noise of regularly having people over for a meal. I struggle to look after my family—forget about holding down a job. And just thinking about the drive to beach mission, the motion of the ocean and the volume of the big marquee makes me queasy! What does it look like to serve God as someone with a chronic illness?
What Honours God?
All these ministries I’ve referred to: are they the things that bring glory and honour to God? Well, yes and no. They are certainly things that have the potential to further his kingdom. But the Bible tells us it is the posture of our hearts that actually matters. In Matthew 9:13 Jesus quotes from Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus warns against having a show of righteousness but not having hearts that match (Lk 20:45–21:4). Before we consider what it looks like to serve God in chronic illness, we must first examine the state of our hearts. Are you seeking first his kingdom and his glory? This is what brings God honour. Let’s be like the widow who gives little, but generously, out of her poverty (Lk 21:2–4).
What does that look like? As someone who lives with chronic illness, how do I practically honour God with my life? What does it actually look like in a feet on the ground/sitting on the couch, hands at the wheel/lying in bed kind of way?
What Gifts Have You Been Given?
It can be so easy to default to a ‘grass is greener’ mentality. ‘When I’m well, I’ll be able to…’ ‘I could do what that person can do if only…’ But if we remember that God is sovereign over all the details of our lives, we know that he knows and allows whatever situation we are facing. And that is the situation in which we are called to serve him (see 1 Cor 7:17).
So how can we honour God in the here and now, within the confines of our current limitations, in this season where he has taken good health away (cf. Job 1:21, 2:10)? Or I could say, more positively, how can we use what God has given us? God gives us lots of things—servant-heartedness, generosity, wisdom, singleness, marriage, a house, a gentle personality, enthusiasm, intelligence, good health. He gives us our circumstances, our lot in life (Eccles 3:22; 5:18, 19; 9:9; 1 Cor 7:17–24). What has he given you and how can you use these good things and these trying and limiting circumstances, for his glory?
Let me try to spark your imagination. I’ve tried to think creatively about what opportunities my chronic illness gives me. When looked at this way, I can see how the lot in life God has given me right now also gives particular ways that I can worship him and serve others. They’re a little different from the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12, but I think they’re gifts nonetheless!
The gift of extra time and energy: I under-fill my week, knowing that doing too much will likely worsen my migraine levels, and that I need built in rest and recovery time. This gives me time for one-off things when I’m having a more well week. For me that includes writing, admin for holiday kids’ church, extra capacity to do spontaneous activities with my kids, or caring for someone else’s kids if they’ve been going through a difficult time.
The gift of personal ministry: I have learned to lean into my limitations. While I don’t cope well with the noise of large groups of people, I can cope with one or two people at a time. Reading the Bible with someone or catching up over a cuppa (ear plugs in hand!) is such a great way to share life. We get to encourage each other and point each other to Jesus. I get to share about my faith with my not-yet-believing friend. I’ve often found that booking these as weekly catch-ups means that even if I have to cancel a lot, they still happen.
The gift of understanding: I’ve also seen God use my suffering to help me understand and so be able to talk well with others who are suffering. Interestingly, that hasn’t been limited to a shared suffering of chronic illness, but other experiences of suffering as well.
The gift of receiving the help of others: I need a lot of help. Asking for help from others is hard and humbling, but it has been such an opportunity for deepening relationship with them. In my experience, I’ve learned it’s usually a blessing to them as well as to me.
The gift of seeing: my poor health has opened my eyes to the universal truth that we are not in control, and that leads me to prayer and dependence on God. Prayer is something you can do no matter how severe your illness is, and it is one of the most powerful works of our bodies and brings great honour to God.
Your gifts may be different to mine. Maybe you can encourage others with a text or a card? Maybe you can listen to podcasts that will grow you in your knowledge and love of God? Use your imagination. God has called you to chronic illness. How can he use your bodily, human weakness as his strength (2 Cor 12:9–10)?
But what about when your capacity is so limited, that even the simplest of ways to honour God seem unachievable?
When You Literally Can’t Do Anything
When I’m lying in bed, unable to open my eyes or listen to anything or even think clearly, how do I honour God? In these moments, I can’t even pull my brain together enough to pray. Sometimes it feels near impossible to see ways to honour God in our weakness. Some experience illnesses that leave them completely bedridden and dependant on others for their basic physical needs. For many, chronic illness goes hand in hand with mental illness, or sometimes the form of chronic illness is a mental illness and the thought of pulling up your bootstraps and finding a new way to serve is an impossible one.
Friend, if that is you at the moment, I want to encourage you that it is okay. It’s okay if you can’t actively work out ways to serve God in your current situation. In fact, it is more than okay. The honour you bring to God is not limited to and defined by the number of ministries you are involved in, by the number of people you share the gospel with, or by any number of any kind. You are “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [you] to do” (Eph 2:10). The good works that God has prepared for you will not be the same as the person next to you. Don’t worry about any story but your own. If the work that God has given you in this season is simply to trust him, that is of eternal significance. Even in the darkest of places, your life is one that brings glory to God.
Truths to Hold Onto
God’s word is so good. It has so many truths we can hold onto when life is hard. I have heard a beautiful quote from the nineteenth-century missionary Lilias Trotter: “Believe in the darkness what you have seen in the light”. Find yourself truths to believe when the darkness is overwhelming. Let them sit with you. Pray them. Holding onto Jesus, and letting him hold onto you—that brings him honour. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share some truths from God’s word that he has held out to me.
A verse that has been a very precious to me, especially in times of depression, is 2 Corinthians 12:9: “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Sometimes we can see how God’s power is made perfect in our weakness and sometimes we can’t, but this is a truth we can hold onto. His grace is sufficient for you. His power is made perfect in your weakness. Take comfort, dear brothers and sisters, that whatever state of weakness you are in, you can say, along with the apostle Paul:
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9b–10)
Or consider the refrain in Psalms 42 and 43:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
And why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
My salvation and my God.
The writer doesn’t end this Psalm by praising God, but instead tells himself that he will praise God again. He reminds himself of who God is, even if he can’t quite feel everything he knows to be true in that moment. It’s an encouragement to remind ourselves of what is true, while acknowledging that it is not always easy to feel it—“Believe in the darkness what you have seen in the light.”
Finally, in Romans 8:26–27, Paul says,
the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
When I can’t muster up the words to pray, I can cry out to the Spirit to groan for me. He knows my sufferings deeply and he knows God’s will perfectly. God is intimately with me in my despair.
Each of these verses lead me to small moments of dependence on God. Is that not ultimately what he is seeking from each of us? Lives that honour him by their leaning on him? So friend, your life may not feel like one big sacrificial offering. It may feel far less than ordinary. But trust the truths God has held out to you. Let him use you in your weakness. Believe in the darkness what you have seen in the light.
