Sunday 28th September is Disability Awareness Sunday.
Awareness isn’t just about noticing, it’s about seeing as God sees. And when it comes to disability, the Bible gives us four reminders – four Rs that anchor us in truth.
1. Reality: the breadth of disability
Disability is real and it is wide-ranging. It includes mobility, sight, hearing, learning difficulties, mental health challenges, chronic illness, neurological conditions and more. To overlook someone because of disability is itself a kind of blindness.
Some disabilities are obvious; others invisible. Some carry theirs with quiet courage; others feel crushed by it.
But disability is not the whole picture of a life. It is one colour on the canvas and God paints with many colours. The beauty of a person is never reduced to what they cannot do; it shines in who they are and whose image they reflect.
Disability is not the headline of someone’s life; God’s image is.
2. Reject: the shallowness of culture
We live in a culture obsessed with outward appearance. Social media and glossy magazines all shout the same shallow message: ‘You are what you look like.’
But the Bible reminds us that beauty is fleeting.
‘Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.’ (Proverbs 31:30 ESV)
Our culture is addicted to what is . . .
- Unreal – no filter can erase reality.
- Unattainable – there’s always one more flaw to fix.
- Unsustainable – today’s icons are tomorrow’s obituaries.
Contrast that with the kingdom of God where the last are first, the weak are lifted and those overlooked are honoured.
The world values the gloss; God values the soul. Our culture asks, ‘How do you look?’ God asks, ‘How is your heart?’
3. Recognise: the dignity of every person
Genesis 1:26 is unambiguous: every human being is made in God’s image.
‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”’ (Genesis 1:26 ESV)
That includes the strong and the weak, the able and the disabled, the seen and the unseen.
History shows us the horror of forgetting this. The Nazis labelled people with disabilities ‘unworthy of life’ and exterminated them. Today, children in the womb are sometimes aborted because of the possibility of disability. When we forget Genesis 1:26, we devalue life itself.
But the Bible speaks a better word:
- ‘The Lord said to Samuel . . . “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”’ (1 Samuel 16:7 ESV)
- ‘He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.’ (Isaiah 53:2 ESV)
And on the cross, the Son of God entered weakness, pain and humiliation. The Saviour knows what it is to be despised and dismissed.
We see this truth beautifully in my friend Emily Owen, who lost her hearing in her twenties. At first, she wrestled with anger, grief and loss. She has been honest about the dark days. But she also discovered God’s grace in the silence. Emily once said, ‘I lost my hearing, but I did not lose my God.’
Instead of allowing deafness to define her, Emily has allowed Christ to refine her. She has become an author, a speaker and a voice of encouragement to many. As she herself puts it, ‘My weakness became the very place where God gave me a ministry.’
Emily’s testimony echoes Paul’s words:
‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ (2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV)
Emily reminds us that the absence of sound does not mean the absence of God. In fact, she testifies that sometimes it is in the silence that God speaks the loudest.
Disability does not disqualify us; it often deepens us. We don’t need perfect hearing to help others hear God’s voice.
Our value is not in what we lose, but in the God we cannot lose.
4. Respond: the example of Jesus
Awareness must become action.
Jesus didn’t avoid people on the margins but went straight to them. He touched the untouchable, lifted the overlooked and dignified the despised.
‘When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’ (Luke 14:13-14 ESV)
Jesus healed the deaf (Mark 7), gave sight to the blind (John 9), touched the leper (Mark 1) and restored dignity to the outcast.
We may not always be able to perform miracles of healing, but we can perform miracles of love: a listening ear, a warm welcome, a seat at the table, a place in the family.
- Jesus didn’t just heal bodies; he restored dignity.
- People are not problems to be solved but individuals to be loved.
- Awareness is good; action is better.
A response prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you touched the untouchable, lifted the overlooked and blessed the broken.
Forgive us when we look but fail to see; when we notice but fail to act.
Give us eyes to see dignity where the world sees deficiency.
Give us hearts to love without limits.
Give us hands to serve with kindness, courage and compassion.
Thank you that our worth is not in what we achieve but in what you achieved for us at the cross.
Help us to follow your example today and always. Amen.
Grace and peace,
J.John
