John Knight is the Sr. Director of Development at Desiring God.

Originally posted, July, 2008

The 4th of July is a different sort of ‘Independence Day’ for me. On July 4, 1995 my multiply-disabled son entered the world and my life came crashing down around me—and would soon include a deep and intense bitterness toward God.

I never denied that God existed or is powerful; I concluded he was mean and capricious. But it also began God’s work of creating an affection for him and for the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. I am often astonished, when thinking back, that I am now able to praise God for his goodness in giving my son his autism and blindness.

None of this happened easily or by accident.  I can point to five specific things that God brought to bear on my life:

1. Faithful pastoral leadership.

I can still remember Pastor Tom Steller, now leading The Bethlehem Institute, walking up my front steps with a note from Pastor John. And I remember sitting with and emailing Pastor David Michael. 

These men, with great courage and biblical conviction, entered into dangerous territory. My attorney, a man trained in conflict, said that my intensity and bitterness frightened him. But my pastors never wavered from bringing a message of hope and absolute certainty in the sovereignty and goodness of God, even when I pushed them away.

2. Faithful people of Bethlehem Baptist Church. 

Shortly after my son was born we dropped everything at church—our small group, volunteering, Sunday school class and attendance. One couple refused to let us go and loved us with a gracious, firm, consistent tenderness that made me want to understand how they could love someone like me, my wife or my son so completely.

3. A faithful father. 

My own father was the first person in the world to understand and communicate my son’s value and inherent worth as a creation of a good and loving God to me. Through 13 years, he has stood with me through much pain and sorrow—and joy.

4. A faithful wife. 

My wife and I have not walked the same path; hers has been much harder than mine for many reasons. But by the grace of God we are together and I thank God every day for this woman whose spine is made of steel and who loves me and our four children.

5. The sovereignty of God as revealed in his word. 

I remember a particularly heartbroken, bitter email I sent to Pastor John. He had every right to discipline me, but instead wrapped the words of the bible around my heart. God used those words from the bible, among many others, to create longings I didn’t have, to start a dead heart beating, and to reveal, when I was incapable of seeing, the beauty, sufficiency, and majesty of Jesus Christ and his cross.

God has done it all, and it was his word that proved decisive.

Living with a boy, now a teenager no less, who will always be dependent on someone for all his needs is hard. I have a daily, often hourly, fight for joy in my salvation. Yet, through my oldest son’s daily care, through my youngest son’s premature birth, and now through my wife’s ongoing battle with metastatic cancer, God is not just sustaining me, but revealing more of his goodness because he is sovereign over all these things, for his glory and my good. 

So, on this Independence Day I am grateful to Jesus for my real freedom in him and for giving me my boy to help me see it: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36). 

Happy birthday, Paul.

Every week our Philippian Fellowship receives a letter from us with updates and prayer requests about things going on here at DG. This week, in praise to God, we wanted to go a little more public with it.

*               *                *

Praise God for the First Quarter of 2009!

God has done marvelous things for Desiring God so far this year—please join with us in praising him for all that he provided! 

• New resources have been released, such as Noel Piper’s Do You Want a Friend?
• The DG home page has been completely redesigned with new functions to more easily view video.
• The Pastors Conference in February served more than 1,500 pastors.
• The media team travelled to Angola Prison to document five Christian rap artists in concert there. They then travelled to Memphis to finish filming DG’s first music video, Don’t Waste Your Life, which was released last week by Reach Records.
• Donations have exceeded our expectations, both in numbers of dollars and numbers of donors, in each of the first three months of the year so far.  We are grateful to God for what he has provided through the Philippian Fellowship and others.
• God opened up opportunities for International Outreach to donate books and media resources for ministry partners in 37 countries including...Bulgaria, China, India, Malawi, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, and the UAE.  Pray with us for impact and fruitfulness for the global church.
• DG signed a lease to stay in our current offices while considering our longer-term needs.

Pray for Pastor John

Please continue to pray for Pastor John as he fulfills a number of preaching and speaking commitments through the end of April:

• April 19 — Preaching at Park Street Church, Boston
• April 21-23 — Speaking at The Gospel Coalition
• April 23 — Lecture and discussion at Park Community Church
• April 25-26 — Services at Bethlehem Baptist Church
• April 30 — Children Desiring God Conference

Thank you for praying with and for us,

John Knight

[Read an update on Hope Commons.]

Desiring God has been given new facilities for $1 a year. All we have to do is outfit the building for our needs.

And God has provided through more than 500 different people! As ofOctober 3, 2008, $1 million has been donated to help make Hope Commonsthe new launching pad for Desiring God. Please join us in praising Godfor this good and timely provision from his hand.

God moved in a mysterious, miraculous way to provide for this need.Since December of 2007, we have been bringing this need before God andbefore friends of Desiring God. After God quickly provided nearly$600,000 this spring, we made little progress for the next five months.

But God knew what we needed and when we would need it. So we gathereddaily to pray, to encourage each other to press on, and to rememberGod’s good provision to his people in the Bible.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

And all along God was taking care of us. He knew before we did thatthe buildout of our new space would be delayed by several months. Andwhen construction began in earnest, God provided through his peoplemore than $300,000 in less than five weeks—during some of the mostdifficult economic times in memory.

God is not constrained by a credit crisis or inflation or the stockmarket. He reigns supreme and is lavish in his generosity to those whowait on him!

Thank you, Father, for your good provision through these faithfulpeople. Thank you for your word to carry us through difficulty:

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7)

Thank you, most of all, for the greatest treasure in the universe - Jesus Christ!

The 4th of July is a different sort of ‘Independence Day’ for me. On July 4, 1995 my multiply-disabled son entered the world and my life came crashing down around me—and would soon include a deep and intense bitterness toward God.

I never denied that God existed or is powerful; I concluded he was mean and capricious. But it also began God’s work of creating an affection for him and for the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. I am often astonished, when thinking back, that I am now able to praise God for his goodness in giving my son his autism and blindness.

None of this happened easily or by accident.  I can point to five specific things that God brought to bear on my life:

1. Faithful pastoral leadership.

I can still remember Pastor Tom Steller, now leading The Bethlehem Institute, walking up my front steps with a note from Pastor John. And I remember sitting with and emailing Pastor David Michael. 

These men, with great courage and biblical conviction, entered into dangerous territory. My attorney, a man trained in conflict, said that my intensity and bitterness frightened him. But my pastors never wavered from bringing a message of hope and absolute certainty in the sovereignty and goodness of God, even when I pushed them away.

2. Faithful people of Bethlehem Baptist Church. 

Shortly after my son was born we dropped everything at church—our small group, volunteering, Sunday school class and attendance. One couple refused to let us go and loved us with a gracious, firm, consistent tenderness that made me want to understand how they could love someone like me, my wife or my son so completely.

3. A faithful father. 

My own father was the first person in the world to understand and communicate my son’s value and inherent worth as a creation of a good and loving God to me. Through 13 years, he has stood with me through much pain and sorrow—and joy.

4. A faithful wife. 

My wife and I have not walked the same path; hers has been much harder than mine for many reasons. But by the grace of God we are together and I thank God every day for this woman whose spine is made of steel and who loves me and our four children.

5. The sovereignty of God as revealed in his word. 

I remember a particularly heartbroken, bitter email I sent to Pastor John. He had every right to discipline me, but instead wrapped the words of the bible around my heart. God used those words from the bible, among many others, to create longings I didn’t have, to start a dead heart beating, and to reveal, when I was incapable of seeing, the beauty, sufficiency, and majesty of Jesus Christ and his cross.

God has done it all, and it was his word that proved decisive.

Living with a boy, now a teenager no less, who will always be dependent on someone for all his needs is hard. I have a daily, often hourly, fight for joy in my salvation. Yet, through my oldest son’s daily care, through my youngest son’s premature birth, and now through my wife’s ongoing battle with metastatic cancer, God is not just sustaining me, but revealing more of his goodness because he is sovereign over all these things, for his glory and my good. 

So, on this Independence Day I am grateful to Jesus for my real freedom in him and for giving me my boy to help me see it: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36). 

Happy birthday, Paul.