What is Your Mission?

 

Every company has a mission statement–a statement that describes what they are about and what they are in business to accomplish. Every church should have a mission statement, and I would hope that it was based on Matthew 28:19; Go and tell! It does seem that companies and churches sometimes lose sight of what they were meant to do. Several years ago, the London Transit Authority was having complaints their buses were simply passing by bus stops where passengers were patiently waiting, and failing to stop. They released a statement saying, "It is impossible for us to maintain schedules if we always have to stop and pick up passengers." That is an excellent example of a company who lost the vision of their mission. I sometimes look at our churches and think, "Do we have a vision?" 

Statistics show that 95% of Christians have not ever shared their faith. Never?? How can you be saved and love God and not tell someone about it? You should be leaking Jesus. It has also been reported that if every evangelical in the world would share Christ with one person everyday then we could reach the entire world in 3 months. No, that doesn’t mean that the whole world would accept Jesus Christ, but it would mean that we did what Jesus asked us to do. Exactly why do we not do it? Personally, I am afraid I judge based on appearance whether or not they need to hear it or even want to hear it. Even though I have heard story after story of Americans who were adults before they ever heard about Jesus, Americans who were adults before they ever received their first Bible. While we have focused on foreign countries, our own country has developed an incredible need for missionaries right before our very eyes. In Matthew 9:38, Jesus says, "Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." While you are praying that prayer, don’t forget that God may be pointing to you! He may not be sending you to China-it may just be into your company or your world. No matter where you are, just go and tell!

A Picture of Disability

I answer the phone and a lady demands to know how her disability case is going. I can tell she is disgruntled and ready to pick a fight. Apparently her neighbor, who has "absolutely nothing" wrong with him just won his disability. We always judge situations by what we can see and so many people do not look disabled. They aren’t in a wheelchair, don’t have artificial limbs, aren’t blind, or have obvious mental retardation. There is no tape measure for disability.  You must take into account all medical problems and how their combined effect will impact a person’s ability to work. Disability cannot be determined by focusing on one issue.

In the past 15 years the number of applications for disability has almost doubled. The very word “disability” is a loaded word these days. All day long I hear things like: I need my disability, I applied for my disability. He doesn't have a disability. What exactly is a disability? 

President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, and the Social Security Board (SSB) was born.  The SSB was renamed the Social Security Administration (SSA) on July 16, 1946.  It was established to “develop a comprehensive social insurance system covering all major personal economic hazards with a special emphasis on unemployment and old age insurance.”  Over time, this program has grown to include disability insurance: Title II which is Retirement, Survivor’s and Disability Insurance (RSDI) and Title XVI which is Supplemental Security Income (SSI). When people work, they pay Social Security taxes and after so many quarters of paying these taxes, you become "insured" for disability purposes. If you have not worked or are not insured for disability purposes, you must qualify for SSI in order to receive any disability benefits.  The rules for SSI are all financial and very stringent.  The most money you can draw under SSI at the present time is a whopping $8,529.00 a year if you are single or $12,792.55 if you are married.  Many people do not qualify for the maximum amount because they may live with a family member. If you have to live on SSI benefits, you will live in poverty.  

The Social Security Administration defines disability as an inability to work, and you must be totally disabled from all work.  There are no benefits for partial or short-term disability (less than one year).  There is a five-step evaluation process used to determine if adults qualify for disability.  You are evaluated based on the work you did before, your current work activity, your medical condition and how it affects your ability to work, whether or not you can adjust to other work because of your medical condition; and whether your disability has lasted or is expected to last for at least one year or to result in death. They also evaluate your education and literacy.  

Many times clients will keep focusing on their physical problems which are not that severe, but after dealing with them for some time, I discover they have some profound psychological problems. Why is it easier to admit that our back is broken and not our mind? Our minds can break under the pressure of life just as easily as a bone. Mental disabilities are very real.  People who criticize the disability program say that if you are physically able, then your mental capacity should have no bearing on the matter. Having a strong and sound mind is just as necessary to your ability to work as your physical health.

Education is also a very important factor in determining whether or not a person is disabled.  Let’s face it, some people are just smarter than others.  We had a client who was at his hearing and Mr. Diggs asked him if there was any job he thought he could do with his set of medical problems, and he said, “I think I could do what he’s doing.” and pointed to the Judge.  Not only are there people who are smarter, there are families who are richer and able to spend more money on education.  I knew a man who was encouraging his grandson to stay in college and he said, “From the neck down, I can hire a man for about $10.00 an hour or less, but from the neck up it gets a lot more expensive.”  Our mental abilities play a very important role in our ability to work. What causes one person to be disabled, may barely slow another person down.  The more you look at the issue of disability, you realize, that defining disability is not that easy.

• Selected Data From Social Security’s Disability Program. Social Security: The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Admnistration. March 29, 2013. www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibStat.html
• Social Security History.  Social Security: The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Administration. April 2, 2013. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/orghist.html
• SSI Federal Payment Amounts For 2013. Social Security: The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Administration. April 2, 2013. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/COLA/SSI.html 
• Definition of Social Security disability. Social Security: The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Administration. April 2, 2013. http://ssacusthelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/152/~/definition-of-social-security-disability

He Took a Nail For Me

For me, the most horrifying part of the crucifixion is the nails. The very thought of nails going through his hands and feet makes me cringe in pain. When I watch reenactments that have the sound of the hammer and nails, it always brings tears to my eyes. My daughter hates to see blood or pain being inflicted on anyone, and today as we watched an Easter program she hid her eyes. When they were hammering the nails, she said "that doesn't sound like fun." I assured her that it wasn't fun.

It is very humbling to think that Jesus took a nail for me. It wasn't fun, pleasant or the least bit enjoyable. He endured incredible pain, and He did it for me. We have had this week to remember His death and sacrifice. Tomorrow, we can celebrate the victory. Death has died and we are alive because He rose again!

Why is Disability Really on the Rise?

Social Security has been a hot button issue for at least the past two major elections.  It does not matter if you are passionately for it or passionately against it; this government benefit likely affects us all.  This American Life, a radio program of Chicago Public Radio, recently aired a program called “Trends with Benefits” which discussed Social Security disability benefits and how the number has nearly doubled over the last 15 years.  Planet Money’s Chana Joffe-Walt spent six months investigating disability and focused on this one town in Hale County, Alabama, where 1 in 4 of the population are receiving Social Security disability benefits. Despite her in-depth study, it still seems she failed to glean one very important benefit of Social Security disability: the fact that it provides medical insurance. 

My husband is a lawyer and has been representing clients in their appeals for Social Security Disability for over 30 years.  I have worked with him for 20 years and have seen hundreds of cases of disability ranging from the severe to the not so severe.  Yes, there have been a very few people who obtained their disability, and I was not completely convinced that they were completely disabled, but many, many more failed to obtain benefits when they really should have won.  I talk with these people multiple times throughout this process, help in obtaining their medical records, help fill out paperwork and file their appeals online.  Through the years, I have come to realize several problems with the entire disability process.  The next few posts will be about Social Security disability from my viewpoint of 20 years experience working with these types of cases.  

What I have discovered that Joffe-Walt did not is that healthcare reform is absolutely necessary in order to change the future of Social Security disability.  I feel it is the key to reducing applications, reducing payments, and shortening the payout of current payments.  I have seen many people who have been forced to file for disability instead of working in order to obtain medical insurance.  Claimants are forced to remain on disability and not return to work, because of medical insurance.  Without healthcare reform, the number of applications and amount of money spent on disability benefits will only get worse. 

In the next four posts, I plan to answer the following questions:  What is disability? Why is healthcare and medical insurance so important? What causes disabilities? Why do disability benefits seem to be permanent? 

Mirror, Mirror

By: Terry P. Diggs

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
   Who's the fairest of them all?

When the queen asked her mirror that question every morning, the mirror always answered that she was the fairest--until one day when a different answer was returned. That response started a long series of attempts to kill Snow White.

How do we answer that question about ourselves? Most of us put on a veneer of humility, but deep down inside, we think we are better or more deserving of praise than others. "Pride," the Scripture says, "goeth before a fall." I don’t know about you, but the battle against pride and its effects is continuous for me.

Pride interferes with our Christian witness. If we think we, and others, are good, how can we tell others that they are sinners in need of Jesus? If we are better than others, how can we stoop to minister to lower beings? How can we do it effectively?

Pride is really the great sin: it is the sin of thinking we are like God. It is the original sin of Satan. Pride provoked the Jewish leaders to put a contract on the head of Jesus. "The fairest of them all" is never us: it is always Jesus, and we must constantly keep that in mind.

Center of His Will

Many analogies have been made of the potter and clay to Jesus and His creations.  It may seem old and worn out to you, but it came alive to me recently. Hannah bought a little child’s pottery wheel with some of her birthday money, and we were trying to learn how to operate it. We discovered that everything has to be just right in order for the clay to actually become a vessel.  One very important step is for the clay to be in the center of the wheel. If it is off to the side, it won’t work right; it must be in the very center. I thought about us and how we must be in the very center of God’s Will in order for our lives to turn out right. It seems like I surrender and tell God, I want to be like that Godly vessel and I crawl right in the center of His will and then once it gets to spinning, I start crawling back off. 

Another thing we learned was that the clay had to be the right consistency and have the correct amount of moisture,  If it was too wet, it  would slide off.  If it was too dry, it wouldn’t stick to the wheel. If we are properly soaked in God’s Word and have an open communication line with Him, we will be stuck to the center of His Will and when the world gets to spinning crazily, it won’t move us. The devil is good at stealing our time and distracting us, so that we can’t stay focused and fail to study our Bible and pray.  Sometimes the noise of our lives keep us from hearing God's directions. 

What Hinders Your Yes?

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Matthew 10: 36-37

What a weighty scripture!  When I read this, I thought, "how many times have I failed to do what God wanted because of family?" I remember one time answering a question in a Bible Study discussion saying I couldn’t be a missionary in a foreign country because I had a small child, and that I was teaching her about God, which was the most important. My teaching her is of utmost importance, but later I recognized the lunacy of the statement. God brought to mind many missionaries that I have met who have children and are working on the field.  It seems that many of the excuses I use for not doing the work of God are usually connected to my family.  I am very impressed when I see women, men, and children serve God without their wives or husbands or parents. It takes a lot of commitment to stay faithful to God when your spouse or your parents are unbelievers.

 

I think about myself.  I always want to make sure my family is taken care of before I move on to the needs of others.  Yet, I think that God sometimes wants us to sacrifice our comfort for the good of someone else.  I am reminded of the story from my favorite book by Louisa May Alcott, Little Women where Marmee takes their Christmas dinner to the poor family who has nothing.  Many of us would not think of making our own families do without.  We will give so long as we have enough for us first. 

 

Take a moment and think of something God may have been impressing you to do, but you keep saying no. What is holding you back? What is your excuse? He will provide the ability, the courage, and the resources to do it. He will be there with you to protect you and your family as you work for Him, and should you lose your life on this earth, you will have gained an eternal reward that cannot be touched by human hands. The eternal life that Christ has given us will be so much sweeter than this life full of sin, pain, and suffering. Matthew 10:39 says, "He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Don’t let family hinder you in your service to God.