When Baby and Body Belong to God

Recently, I prayed with a former student whose wife delivered their planned and expected child very early in her pregnancy. The baby did not live and they were grieving the loss, trying to understand, yet accepting it as God’s plan. Then I turned on the TV and heard arguments that a woman’s body is her own and does not belong to anyone but herself. The logic further alleges she is therefore free to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The argument is often seen as strong from a human perspective, but there is a higher fact. A woman’s body (and for that matter, a man’s body) belongs to God. The apostle Paul said it this way: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). There is a distinct difference in the two illustrations. In one case God gave and God took away, and God’s people tried to understand, accept, and move on. In the other case, God gives, and people take away. The temptation is an old one – to take matters into our own hands and minds; to try to do, and understand for ourselves. Job discovered that it was the Lord, and only the Lord, who gives, the Lord, and only the Lord, who takes away, and then proclaimed, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). We would do well to allow God to be God, and His Word to be our Guide.

Join me this week in remembering the following global concerns:
• Pray for the Central Czechoslovakia Family English Camp on July 21-27.
• Pray about possibilities for prayer conferences in the country of Georgia in the fall.
• Pray for Mary as she ministers at a soup kitchen in Netanya, just north of Tel Aviv.
• Pray for the School of Cross-cultural Missions in Lima, Peru.