Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh. Did you know that 1 billion people around the world live with disabilities? And many of these individuals and their families live in pain and despair. Our guests today here on Family Talk is familiar with that pain and suffering that a company's physical and mental challenges, both for the disabled as well as for their families. His name is Steve Bundy and he is senior vice president at Joni and Friends. Steve is also the father of a son with special needs named Caleb. In 2018, our co-host Dr. Tim Clinton sat down with Steve Bundy to talk about disabilities, suffering and hope. With all of the despair and pain that continue to characterize our world, we decided that it was a good time to re-air this important conversation. Here now is Dr. Tim Clinton, along with Steve Bundy on today's edition of Family Talk.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Well, hello everyone. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, President of the American Association of Christian Council sitting in for Dr. Dobson today. And on Family Talk, we've got a special in-studio guest, Steve Bundy. Steve's the senior vice president of a very dear ministry to us, Joni and Friends. Steve, thanks for stopping by.
Steve Bundy: Oh, thanks for having me, Dr. Clinton. It's my pleasure to be here.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Steve, interesting. Give us an update on Joni and Friends. What's been happening at the ministry and your role.
Steve Bundy: Sure, absolutely. Well, Joni and Friends continues to grow and thrive. The Lord blesses us in ministry programs around the world. Everything from our Wheels for the World, to our Christian Institute on Disability, we continue to see many, many families affected his disabilities come to Christ. Be inspired, be encouraged, become included in the church. And you know, Dr. Clinton, there's no shortage of need in the world. And in that regards, the vision and the goal is always before us. And that is to expand His kingdom to people affected by disabilities all around the world, and the Lord's blessing the work that we're doing.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Do you think the church is becoming more aware of and tender toward those with challenging issues and disabilities?
Steve Bundy: I do. We see that. We see that happening in our Christian Institute on Disability, we've developed curriculum that's specific for the church. That's specific for Bible universities and seminaries, recognizing that God wants the church to be prepared at the grassroots level where lay people and volunteers and parents and so forth are working in the ministry. But he also wants to prepare the leaders, the leaders of today, and the leaders of tomorrow who will fill the pulpit, who will be teaching from the word of God that they have a heart and a mind, and a passion for people affected by disabilities. That when they get to the pulpit, it's not a matter of should we minister to people affected by disabilities, but their question is where are they? Because Luke 14 says, "Make my house full." Fill my house with people affected by disabilities. So in that regards, we see the Lord waking up the church, still a lot of need, still a lot of work to do, but we do see the church waking up.
Dr. Tim Clinton: So it makes sense then. Steve, I know you wear many hats, have a lot of responsibility, but one of the projects you were involved with was a Bible project called the Beyond Suffering Bible Gift. A gift to the church, especially to those who are hurting. Steve, tell us a little bit about how it came about and what's in it?
Steve Bundy: No, absolutely. Well, thank you for asking. This is one of the most exciting projects I've ever been a part of. I have the privilege of helping oversee the project, work on the executive committee with, with Joni herself and be a contributor to the Bible. So it's very exciting. And we call it the Beyond Suffering Bible, because as you know, Dr. Clinton, everybody experiences suffering. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. It's the common denominator. We all suffer at some level or some aspect of life. And we recognize that families affected by disabilities, have often additional levels of suffering. Whether it's spiritual, whether it's social, whether it's physical, there's levels of suffering that take place in families affected by disability.
So, we wrote a Bible that's actually called Beyond Suffering. So, in other words, the Scripture recognizes that's suffer happens, but the presence of God makes all the difference in the world and takes us beyond suffering. So this Bible's very unique. It has a lot of characteristics about it. You won't find in a lot of other Bibles. It has devotionals, it has special words from Joni, it has profiles of biblical characters and modern characters. We talk about the presence of God in the midst of their suffering. We've got connection points that bring the reader into the word of God, just very excited about it.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Steve, there tends to be among even us as Christians, this way of ignoring or trying to turn away, or maybe we're like kids on a bicycle. Or we think if we keep our eyes closed for a couple more seconds and open them, everything's going to go away, and everything's going to be okay. But there are a lot of people out there going through deep dark valleys. I'm reminded of Job 5:7, Job 14:1 "Man who's born of woman has but a few days and their lives are full of trouble." Listen, if you are going through a dark valley right now, I want you to turn the radio up a little bit. Steve, you work at Joni and Friends, but you and your family, you've been on a journey. Tell us a little bit about Caleb?
Steve Bundy: Sure. Absolutely. Well, Dr. Clinton, like probably most of the listeners today, I had my five point plan all worked out for my life. And I actually thought it was a pretty good plan and wasn't quite sure why God would intervene with it. But He did so in the form of a little boy named and Caleb. Caleb was born to us 18 years ago. And as new parents, young parents, we did not know what to expect with a new baby, much less a child born with special needs and disabilities. And so Caleb came into our lives, and it became, for me, a wilderness. It became a crisis of faith is what it became.
Dr. Tim Clinton: This is my boy.
Steve Bundy: This is my boy. This is my boy. We traded toy trucks for therapies. We traded dreams and hopes for caregiving. Everything that we dreamt about, the aspirations for who is our son going to be became needs and crisis for who's going to care for him. And for me, especially as a young man wanting to enter the ministry, trusting God with my family, here I am now trying to reconcile the goodness of God with my son's Lord in life. And for me it became a valley. It became that dark night of the soul, if you will, in trying to reconcile, how could a good God allow my son to be born with disabilities and special needs?
Dr. Tim Clinton: Yeah. Why? Why God? Why us? Why now? Why my boy?
Steve Bundy: And so, it was a journey that began for us with the why question, and what God eventually did with that through a series of conversations, through a series of people ministering to us and our family, through the ministry of the Word, through the ministry of worship. He brought me personally to a place where I turned that why, and that why by the way is with a closed fist. Why God? Why would you do this? And eventually he turned that to a why Lord, what is your purpose with open palms? Now Lord, show me why. He brought me to a place of surrender to understand that suffering without purpose is meaningless, but suffering with purpose through the sovereignty of God has all the meaning in the world.
And I began to open my eyes to the spiritual things that God was beginning to do in our lives, through our son, and began to see the purposes and the reasons for why he brought my son into this world with special needs, that he would become a vessel of ministry to others. And today I tell you, he is my greatest teacher. He's never formed a sentence. He can't walk across this room, but he's my greatest teacher.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Let's go back and stay on this journey for a moment, Steve, because I think it's such a gift. God's done something in your heart and your life. You see differently. But some people are still stuck in the dark valley.
Steve Bundy: Yes they are.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And I mean, they're literally physically sick. They want to throw up. They're still crying out. Speak to them. I mean, because you've been there.
Steve Bundy: Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You see it every day. You minister to people who are right there. How do you let them know that God's there in the darkness?
Steve Bundy: Yeah. I think I would say to whoever's listening it's in that spot is first and foremost, God loves you. God cares for you. And he has a plan for you. Whatever that circumstance is, however deep that valley, however dark it is, there's light at the end, and it's God. He's surrounding you with his love, his tender mercy. He is not forgotten you.
Dr. Tim Clinton: But you can hear him saying, but Steve, I don't want this. God, I don't want this. And what you're trying to say is... And let me ask you this. Do you think God weeps with us in our pain?
Steve Bundy: Absolutely. God weeps with us.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Do you think his heart's broken in the midst of all that?
Steve Bundy: Absolutely. I know one of Joni's quotes, one of my favorite quotes of Joni is, "God permits what He hates to accomplish what He loves." And it's often through that realm of brokenness that God brings us to that place of surrender, where we begin... Going back to the palms up to say, "Okay, I realize now, Lord, I am not in control. I am not the Lord. I am not the God of my life. You are. So here's my life. Take me, lead me, meet me in the dark valley. You haven't forgotten me. You have not forsaken me. You have a plan for me. You have purpose for me. You have steps for me to accomplish. And you will walk with me hand in hand through this valley, through this circumstance," whatever it is, God has a plan. God has a purpose. That purpose always ends for good. For those who love him and are called according to his purposes. But it's a process.
Dr. Tim Clinton: I'm with you, Steve, but you can hear somebody saying, but I'm so angry. You know that my emotion, it's all over the place. I'm trying to go there Steve. Do you want them to take that to the Lord?
Steve Bundy: Absolutely. I'm a firm believer God can handle our anger. And anger is normal. It's a natural emotion. And so it's not that anger in and of itself is wrong. It's what do we do with that anger. Now that anger can take us one or two places, right? It can take us to a place of bitterness. It can take us to a place of deep sorrow where we don't see any way out and depression is the answer. Or that anger can lead us to the cross. That anger can lead us to the only one who can minister to us, who can say to us, I know you're angry. I know it hurts. Let me love you. Let me care for you. Let me walk you through this journey and let me turn that anger into rejoicing. And that's a process. It's not an overnight.
Dr. Tim Clinton: This is a journey.
Steve Bundy: It is a journey.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's not something you just swallow.
Steve Bundy: One night, Dr. Clinton, I'll tell you how I came to a place with palms up. Caleb, my son was born with multiple disabilities, autism being one of them. He has some developmental disabilities, and muscular dystrophy. His internal clock is broken, which is true of all of our... Not all, but a lot of our special needs children. And so he would wake up in the middle of the night, often crying, not even sure what time it was in the night. He's about two and a half years old, I went in one night and I held my son. I rocked him back to sleep. He stopped crying and I laid there in the floor. And I was looking up in the ceiling, in my son's room. And I had to say, "God, why won't you fix my son?"
I'm a typical male, right? What am I going to do? I'm going to fix what's broken. My son was broken. I wanted to fix him. All the therapies in the world was not putting him back together. And I had that anger. I had that sense of lostness and disillusionment, but I never forget that one night. As I lay there, tears are strolling down my cheeks. I say, God, why won't you fix him? Now I've never heard the voice of God. But as clearly as I've ever heard the Lord speak into my heart, or since his presence fill the room, I heard the Lord say to me, "Steve, my son, aren't you glad I did not require you to be fixed before I accepted you."
And that was a watershed moment for me. I mean, it was probably the most revealing time for me to understand the unconditional love of God that, me and my brokenness right? In my own disability, if you will, in my own sin and ugliness the Lord fully and unconditionally welcomed me and forgave me. And made me his son, I didn't have to be fixed. It was in that moment, I reached out, I grabbed my son. I pulled him close to me. I said, "Caleb, you don't need to be fixed. I love you. I love you for who you are, who God created you to be. Today, I've become your father. You've become my son." And from then on out, it's been palms up. That's when I truly came to a place where I said, Lord, no longer why with a closed fist, but why, what's your purpose? What's your plan in this with open palms?
Dr. Tim Clinton: You're listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, president of the American Association of Christian Counselors filling in, and our special in studio guest, Steve Bundy, senior vice president at Joni and Friends. Dear ministry, friends of ours. And what a compelling story. Steve, what do you want our listeners to know about autistic children and families with an autistic child?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think the first thing I would say, Dr. Clinton is always keep in mind first and foremost, their child is a child first. They're not a child with autism and the autism defines them. Autism is certainly a part of their characteristic. It's a part of who they are. No doubt about it. And that creates a lot of challenges for that family. But what that family wants you to see is not Joni with autism, as much as just Joni, right? Or Sally, or James or whoever the child may be. But having said that, it is a good, and it's important to understand some things about autism. The Centers for Disease Control tell us that one and every 68 children born now are diagnosed with autism.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's off the charts.
Steve Bundy: Off the charts.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What do you think is feeding some of that?
Steve Bundy: Well, we could get into theories, but we may not want to go down that road too far. But there certainly are, I think some issues related to predispositions in children and something's triggering this. And there's lots of theories about that. But what I do believe is that it's more than, as some say, just better diagnosis. We do see real evidence of a significant increase in children. And so we need to be aware of that. We need to be aware of it in our neighborhoods and our communities and our churches. We need to be aware of it. I tell pastors it's no longer if children with autism come to your church, it's when.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Absolutely.
Steve Bundy: Because they're there already most likely, and more are coming.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And how are we going to minister to them?
Steve Bundy: Great question. Well, as you know, autism is spectrum and one of the primary issues with autism is it really affects the way children process information. And so they're going to process information differently. And because of that, it's going to create some characteristics that quite honest, others can become uncomfortable with. They can be uncomfortable with maybe their social skills or maybe certain characteristics of behavior. That aren't what we would call acceptable, always in a social setting. Sometimes it's a matter of noises that a child with autism may-
Dr. Tim Clinton: High sensitivity.
Steve Bundy: Very high sensitivity to light, sound, you name it. And so I think through some very practical steps, people can become more sensitive to families affected by autism. They can support those families affected by autism.
Dr. Tim Clinton: What's the best gift we can give to a family?
Steve Bundy: Acceptance. Absolute hands down, acceptance. Everybody wants to be accepted, faults and all. So if you ever go anywhere and there's a sign at the door that says adults are welcome, but you know, children with certain disabilities need to be left outside. Well, we would never see that sign. Of course, we would never see that sign. But I tell you, unfortunately, what happens is the sign isn't there but the attitude is. And people sense that, people know that. And when their children are not welcome, they're not going to be a part of that community or part of that group or part of that church.
So, what we talk about often with churches is the issue of barriers. And often we think about physical barriers, ramps, elevators, these kinds of things for wheelchairs when it comes to special needs. But what we have found to be the largest barrier is what we call attitudinal barriers. The attitudes create huge barriers. Oh, you can carry someone up a sidewalk, right steps. But boy, getting through that attitude barrier, that's a challenge. And so that's one of the reasons why a lot of what we do is we penetrate churches, seminaries universities with a biblical perspective on disability and suffering. God's view.
Dr. Tim Clinton: We need to support each other and encourage one another. Steve, we're fighting time here for a moment. But I want to come back to the Beyond Suffering Bible because it makes a lot of sense. Now here's this gift to us. I want to encourage our listeners out there because I believe in the ministry of soul care, that He's the father of mercy, He's the God of all comfort who comforts us and everything or whatever we're going through so that we in turn can comfort others with the comfort, we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4. There it is. That God calls us to that. This Beyond Suffering Bible, is this for people who are going through dark times? And is it also a resource that I can use to help other people, what to say when I don't know what to say. What to do when I don't know what to do.
Steve Bundy: The answer to that is yes to all the above. The Beyond Suffering Bible it's a resource. Obviously, the Word of God is the resource of resources. So, what we've simply done is take the word of God and come alongside it to showcase, if you will, the presence of God, the Word of God, when it comes to suffering and disability, we do that through devotions. We do it through specific words of Joni throughout the Bible. We do it through what we call connection points. These aren't deep theological points. They're practical, insightful points that draw you back into the Word of God.
There's resources. We have certain articles within the Bible that speak to different disabilities, that speak to suffering, and anyone can use this and be ministered by it or minister to others through it. It has a topical index at the very beginning, that deals with all kinds of issues of suffering and special needs that you can go right into Scripture, go right into profiles of biblical characters, go right into connection points. Just through that topical index. It has a daily reading program in it for those who like to go through a daily reading program. So, lots and lots of features of this particular Bible.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And highlighting the Word, just passages we love in Scripture. Elohim. God is our refuge and our strength. He's a present help during times of trouble. Before I reckon that the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that one day will be revealed in us. And He who spared, not his own son but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with them freely give us all things. And nothing will separate us from love of God. It's about bringing the word of God alive in our everyday lives.
Steve Bundy: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Steve, I'd love for you to take a moment and just encourage some people who are listening right now. Maybe they have an autistic child. Maybe they have another challenge in their life, and it's dark. They're angry. A lot of what we talked about early on is real to them. Can you give them something to hold on to?
Steve Bundy: Yeah, absolutely. I'm often comforted out of Romans chapter eight.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's a great passage.
Steve Bundy: Where we recognize that we live in a fallen world, and in a fallen world there is suffering. In fact, Paul says, even creation itself, cries out for redemption. Suffering's real. It is a part of the journey. We're all going to experience it at various levels. And to that person who is in the dark valley, they are in a place where they don't see any way out. I want to remind you that God is your refuge. He is your ever present help in times of trouble. He is there for you. And Paul tells us in that Romans eight chapter. He says in verse 28, he says that, "God is at work in all these things for your good." I want to break that down for a moment. God is at work in these things. In these circumstances, in these situations, God is very present. He's not left.
He's not at a distance. He didn't turn his back and forget about you and something happened. The devil hasn't taken over. God is at work in these circumstances, in these situations. And when you lean into him, Paul says, for those who love Him, if you're leaning in to relationship with the father, He works those things out for the good. And you and I can't always understand or see the eternal plans or purposes of God in the moment of crisis. Because, the pain is so severe sometimes. The disillusionment is there. And we're not thinking, we're not seeing clearly. But God's promise is, He will see you through that and work that out for good. Eternal good plans and purposes if you lean into Him and let the God who loves you see you through that dark, terrible time. He's at work to bring good out of that, for you and for those that you love.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And our prayer is that God will take a lot of those why questions and move you to a place where it's, "How Lord? Show me how." You know what I believe? He'll show us.
Steve Bundy: Amen.
Dr. Tim Clinton: He'll take us there. He'll carry us. He has to, and He does. Steve, what a joy. Would you please give regards certainly to Joni and the entire team there, Joni and Friends. Thank you for sharing your testimony, your heart. We'll pray for Caleb.
Steve Bundy: Thank you.
Dr. Tim Clinton: How can people learn more about the Beyond Suffering Bible? Joni and Friends?
Steve Bundy: That's it. Yeah. You just go to JoniandFriends.org, and in our store, just click in Beyond Suffering Bible. There's lots of options there for you to look at and to purchase, both for yourself, maybe a gift for others, a family member, someone who's going through a difficult time, a struggle of some sort. And we have received testimony after testimony of incredible blessing in ministry as a result of this Bible.
Roger Marsh: Encouraging and compassionate words from Steve Bundy and Dr. Tim Clinton on today's edition of Family Talk. Here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we are dedicated to providing your family with resources, encouragement, and hope every day. If you've been blessed by the ministry of Family Talk, please let us know. You can call us at (877) 732-6825. Now, if you'd like to learn more about Steve Bundy, the ministry of Joni and Friends or the Beyond Suffering Bible, visit drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. That's drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. Well, thank you so much for listening today. I'm Roger Marsh. And for all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we hope you'll join us again next time for another addition of Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.