MY AFFLICTION

FOR HIS GLORY

Living Out Your Identity in Christ

DANIEL RITCHIE

My Affliction for His Glory: Living Out Your Identity in Christ

Copyright 2018 Daniel Ritchie

Kirkdale Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

KirkdalePress.com

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Print ISBN 9781683590828

Digital ISBN 9781683590835

Kirkdale Editorial: Abigail Stocker, Eric Bosell, Sarah Awa

Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

Heather,

what a gift you are to me!

I may not be wise or clever enough

to put it into words, but you are

a true measure of grace.

Contents

introduction: My Life Is His Story

1. Born with Purpose

2. Dependent on Him

3. Listening to the Right Words

4. My Pain Is a Gift

5. Born to Make Disciples

6. Born to Love and Be Loved

7. Love Like the Father

8. Born to Celebrate God’s Grace

My Prayer for You

INTRODUCTION

My Life Is His Story

I’ll never graduate.

I’ll never amount to anything.

I’ll never find someone to spend my life with.

I’ll never do anything that matters in the long run.

“Never” is a word I’ve heard a lot in my life. Having been born without either of my arms, I spent the first few years of my life being told all the things that I would never be able to do. I remember my mom saying, “Everything doctors said started to seem less like professional opinions and more like prophecies of doom.” In their professional opinion, I was a lost cause. I was too broken.

One “never” builds on another that builds on another—and eventually you buy the lie that you will never succeed, that you will never amount to anything. For much of my life I faced the battle in my heart that I was going to live up to the doomsday prophecies that my doctors offered. For a time, I was convinced they were right. It was going to be far too difficult to make my feet do what hands were meant for. A man with no arms was never going to fit in a world where everyone has two arms.

But God had more in store for me than to be a victim of a life defined by the things that I was never going to be. In the genius way He crafted me, I learned to do the everyday tasks meant for hands with my feet: brushing my teeth, combing my hair, fixing a bowl of cereal or even making my morning coffee. The things I was told I would never do—walk, eat, dress myself, live independently—I now do with ease.

I pray that my story will allow you to see that God does not operate according to human logic. The Scriptures are littered with people who never should have found a way out of their circumstances: Joseph, Moses, David, Ruth, Job, and Paul were all people who should have been ...