Focus on the Family Broadcast

John Fuller: Today on Focus on the Family, we’re going to explore what is to many a very familiar passage from the Bible in the Old Testament book of Psalms. Psalm 139, which was written as a response to God, expressing wonder at his creativity. Uh, David wrote, “For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are you works, and my soul knows it very well.” Thanks for joining us today. Your host is Focus president and author Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Eh, John, those are familiar words that are often heard in the church, uh, but maybe not fully understood. And we’re going to delve into that today with one of the world’s greatest Christian authors, Philip Yancey. Uh, it was more than 30 years ago when two men collaborated to write a pair of landmark books, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image. They revealed some of the most profound wonders of the human body and how these wonders can also be reflected in the body of Christ.

John: Yeah, it’s a wonderful concept. And, uh, one of those men, uh, a Dr. Paul Brand, was a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon and missionary doctor who had spent a, a great deal of his career caring for leprosy patients in India and also in the U.S. Uh, Dr. Paul Brand passed away in 2003. Uh, the other author is, as you said, well known, uh, very well known, c- Philip Yancey. And, uh, he’s been here on the broadcast before. He’s written, uh, at least 25 books, including Disappointment with God, uh, Where is God When it Hurts?, The Jesus I Never Knew, and What’s so Amazing about Grace?

Jim: Well, Philip, the most wonderful author (laughs). Welcome back to Focus on the Family.

Philip Yancey: Thank you very much.

Jim: It’s amazing, though. You have had an amazing career, uh, communicating through the written word. Do you ever step back, uh, and think, “Wow, Lord…” What (laughs) w-… “Thank you for this ride”?

Philip: I do indeed. And it’s funny because you’ve done writing yourself, and it’s an isolating, um, paranoia-producing-

Jim: (laughs) Uh, true.

Philip: … uh, (laughs) act, you know (laughs)? You, you do it in isolation. You have no idea whether anybody’s gonna read it, whether it’s even gonna become a book. And then years later, somebody’ll come up to you and say, “I, I read this book, and this is how it affected my life.” So, the longer I live, the more of that I get, that kinda retrospective view, but it’s also-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: … hard work (laughs).

Jim: No, it is. And I… You know, it is so rewarding when people come up and express how you helped shape their thinking-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … or their spiritual journey.

Philip: Right.

Jim: It’s a very humbling thing, really and, uh, profound. Uh, let’s start with Genesis 1, where God decided to make mankind in his image.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: We… I use this so often with people. Even people that don’t agree with us about eternal life, they’re not Christian, I’ll talk to them about being made in the image of God.

Philip: Mm.

Jim: They always are intrigued by that. They don’t necessarily agree with it. But what’s the power in that statement, and what are you seeing when that, um, great phrase is used, “made in the image of God”?

Philip: God is a spirit, and you can’t take somebody, uh, say a spiritual searcher, and say, “Lemme show you God.” (laughs) You know? “Here he is. Here’s what he’s like.” And, uh, we are not spirits. We… Or I mean, we have a spiritual part, but we are people of flesh, and we have bodies around us. And being in the image of God is a way of showing the rest of the world what God is like, making God visible. I, uh, was, eh, with a wonderful woman in South Africa one time who had a prison ministry. And sh- it h- had enormous effect on the prison, and went from a, one of the most violent prisons in Africa to one where, uh, things were calm. There were only two acts of violence the next year. And I said to her, “What was your secret?” And she said, “Well, Philip, God was already there in that Pollsmoor Prison. I just had to make him visible.”

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Wow.

Philip: And that’s what we’re called to do, so that when somebody’s made in your image, you said, “Oh, that reminds me, he’s the spitting image of his dad,” you know, um, “because when I look at him, his nose, his ears, or whatever, they remind me of his dad.”

Jim: Yeah, right (laughs).

Philip: And I think that’s what we followers of Jesus are supposed to do so that when people look at us, they say, “Oh, that’s unusual, caring for those kind of people.”

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: Um, most people wanna ignore them. Most people are interested in climbing the ladder, and they’re interested in kinda climbing down the ladder and caring for the outcast, as Jesus did. That is what Jesus is like. That’s what God is like. And we are to reflect that image to make God visible.

Jim: Yeah.

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Uh, Philip, uh, you made a statement in the book, and it said, “All of us are like mirrors with the potential to summon up in the others the spark of God-likeness in the human spirit.”

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: I mean, that y- that’s one of those things, and I think it’s why so many people love your writing. You get it, but it even goes deeper.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Explain that to me.

Philip: Yes. That actually came from an experience that Dr. Brand had. Dr. Brand was a British surgeon. He was being trained during the Blitz of London during World War II, which is a great time to be trained in medicine but not a good time (laughs) to be living in London.

Jim: Mm-hmm. Right.

Philip: And, um, the, the heroes, the true heroes of Britain were RAF fighters because every day, these German bombers would come over and drop bombs. Three thousand people a day-

Jim: Wow.

Philip: … were dying. Think of that, a World Trade Center catastrophe-

Jim: Every day.

Philip: … every day for-

Jim: Mm.

Philip: … a couple months, there. And it looked like they were just gonna completely destroy the city. Well, then these heroic Air Force guys (laughs), Royal Air Force, got in their little Spitfires, and they, they took on these bombers. And eventually, Hitler had to call off the, the bombing campaign. So, these were heroic guys. Well, the Spitfire had one flaw, and that was the, the gasoline tube went from the propeller in the front, through the cockpit, back to the fuel tank, you know?

Jim: So the fuel line ran right by the pilot.

Philip: So the fuel… right by it. So, if they got hit, the entire cockpit would explode. Now, they had an ejection seat, but it was too late. By the time the cockpit exploded, you know, they’re, they’re burned beyond recognition. And Dr. Brand w- um, in his rotation would visit some of these airmen. And here are these guys; they’re top of their class. They’re these handsome figures. People on the street, you know, salute them. Little kids want to be like them. And now they look like Quasimodo (laughs), you know? Their-

Jim: Right.

Philip: … their faces are all twisted and burned. And one of them said to him, “The people that we love who love us become our mirrors. We’ll lie here, and I know you doctors will do everything that you can to make us look as normal as possible, but we know what you do won’t restore the person that we are.”

Jim: Mm.

Philip: “And before we go out and face that world,” and he said, “my fiancée became my mirror so that when I looked at her… When I look in the mirror, I see this misshapen, chard face. When I look at her, I see somebody who loves me.” And Dr. Brand goes on to say, “We can be that mirror for other people.” There are a lot of people around us who, who don’t feel beautiful (laughs), you know, who feel like losers, who are deformed or, eh, just depressed, discouraged. And we can be the mirror that reflects back to them, “There is something of beauty and worth in you.” That’s what we can do as Christians.

Jim: And in so many ways, you’re illustrating the call of Christ in us.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: I mean, that’s what the Lord did, right? He met with the malformed (laughs), whether it was physical, emotional, spiritual.

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: He encountered them-

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: … and restored them.

Philip: He could be transforming. And it doesn’t have to be a physical defect. Think of the story of Zacchaeus. Uh, he was just a disliked person, despised person in the community because he was a ta- a tax collector working for the occupying Romans, and nobody would have anything to do with him. And he, he climbed a tree. Uh, when you’re in Sunday school, you hear, “Wee little men like Zacchaeus.” I think he climbed the tree because he was scared of the townspeople (laughs).

Jim: The mob.

John: (laughs).

Philip: So he wanted to be in a safe place.

Jim: Mm.

Philip: So he’s up there, and Jesus stops the procession and says, uh, “Zacchaeus, I’d like to come to your house for dinner tonight.”

Jim: Mm.

Philip: He became that mirror. You know, nobody had treated Zacchaeus like that before.

Jim: Mm.

Philip: And it transformed him. That night he’s giving away… “Anybody I’ve cheated, I’ll, I’ll restore four times what I cheated them of.”

Jim: Right, an amazing turnaround.

Philip: Yeah (laughs), uh, all in one-

Jim: Which-

Philip: … night.

Jim: … again, it takes interaction. It takes relationship. In that regard, uh, Philip, uh, during this past COVID pandemic, uh, we restricted, you know, for medical-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … reasons, interaction with people. And, um, you made the statement, I believe, that that, one of the most meaningful things we can do as human beings is to hug, and to touch, and to-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … interact with one another. Um, why do you believe that touch is so essential to the expression of God’s love?

Philip: Mm-hmm. I find it interesting, if you look at Jesus’ miracles, he didn’t wave a magic wand, you know? He didn’t-

Jim: (laughs) Yeah. Right.

Philip: … stand in front of a group and say, “Okay. All of you with, uh, COVID-19, over on the left. All of you who are having trouble walking, over on the right. And I’ll take care of you in…” He didn’t do that. It was individual. It was-

Jim: Mm.

Philip: … one by one. It was touch. Dr. Brand worked with leprosy patients. And in those days, in the, uh, 1950s when he was started, it was still a very feared disease.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: And he’d, he would tell stories of a patient who would come, uh, often walking because they would be kicked off a bus: People were so afraid of leprosy. And he, he told the story of one man who showed up at his, at his house. And he invited him up to the porch. And he was telling his story, and Dr. Brand reached over and, and touched his shoulder. And the patient just started crying. And he said, “Did I say something to offend you?” And he said, “No, no. It’s just that in many years, no one has ever touched me.”

Jim: Think of that.

Philip: Yeah. And from birth on, you know, you… these studies of babies who aren’t touched, they shrivel up. They don’t really develop as they should mentally and other ways.

Jim: Right.

Philip: And that’s been proven. Touch is maybe our most reliable sense.

Jim: Mm.

Philip: If we… If you think back, uh, Thomas, the disciple, you know, he was doubting- … until Jesus said, “Touch me.” You know (laughs)?

Jim: Right.

Philip: “What do you want… What proof do you need?” And Thomas, that’s the only time when in the New Testament somebody called Jesus “God,” “My Lord and my God,” Thomas said. Touch was the decisive thing. It was the proof, “Oh, you really are the Messiah, the, the wounded Messiah.

Jim: It’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about it in this way, uh, but you think of touch, it’s probably the greatest act of intimacy.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And I’m not talking in a sexual context. Of course, that’s true. But you see someone, and you see someone.

Philip: Right.

Jim: But when you touch someone, the hand on the shoulder, a hug, something like that, it’s a very intimate-

Philip: Yes.

Jim: … act on the part of human beings.

Philip: And that’s one of the great tragedies of COVID-19 too. I, I interviewed a, a chaplain who works in Denver at a memory facility of- with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: And, and for a year, it was under lockdown, where nobody was allowed in. So, these patients who are already confused, and they’re used to having their relatives come and hug them and touch them, and now they just stop, and they can’t really understand it. When you explain to them, “Well, we have this disease going on, and, and they’re not allowed”-

Jim: Right.

Philip: … “in anymore,” and how difficult it is for these people, and you hear the stories of people who die in isolation, nobody around them. And she was a chaplain. She was one of them who would be with those people. And sometimes she would just reach out and touch them because we need that. That’s part of-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: … humanity.

Jim: Oh, we do. We do.

John: This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and today we’re talking with Philip Yancey, who along with the late Dr. Paul Brand, uh, has written a terrific resource. It’s Fearfully and Wonderfully. Uh, the subtitle is The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image. And this is an updated and combined edition of a couple of really classic books. We do have that here at Focus on the Family. Uh, stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800-A-FAMILY.

Jim: Uh, Philip, I do wanna kind of paint the picture of how you and Dr. Brand-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … worked together, ’cause that was, uh, you know, rather interesting that you spent 10 years-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … together. I’m sure that was off and on. But w- uh, describe how you connected and-

Philip: Mm-hmm. Sure. My very first book is the book called Where is God When it Hurts? And I was spending a lot of time in libraries reading books on the Problem of Pain, the Curse of Pain, God’s One Mistake, you know (laughs), books with titles like that. And my wife was working in a medical supply house that would ship, um, medicines to mission hospitals. And she came across a little book, booklet, actually, uh, based on a speech Dr. Paul Brand had given called The Gift of Pain.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: And I had never heard anybody call it a gift before.

Jim: Right (laughs).

Philip: And I had never thought of pain as a gift before.

Jim: Right.

Philip: So I, uh, found out he was now in Louisiana at a hospital, Public Health Service Hospital, treating leprosy. And I called him up out of the blue and said, uh, “Could I come interview you about pain?” He said, “Well, I, I don’t know. I’m kinda busy.” I (laughs) said-

Jim: (laughs).

Philip: … “Well, I’ll just hang out in the hallway. And if you have a lunch hour or something like that, I’ve got a lotta questions.”

Jim: You should’ve said, “I’ll make it painful for you.”

Philip: (laugh) Yeah, right.

Jim: (laughs).

Philip: I hope it wasn’t but, uh, we were kind of an odd couple. I was in my 20s. Um, my hair was wild and crazy. W- um, you know, it was kind… It was, uh, right after the ’60s. And here-

Jim: (laughs).

Philip: … was this distinguished sliver-haired British surgeon who had spent a third of his life in Britain and a third of his life in India. Uh, he became like a father figure to me. And, and I could take him all my questions and all my doubts. He was so important to my… forming my faith, really-

Jim: Yeah.

Philip: … um, because I had come from a unhealthy church background. And here I saw a person who was, who was made better in every way by his faith. He was a-

Jim: Oh.

Philip: … a brilliant surgeon. He had gotten, you know, being awarded the Commander of the British Empire award from the queen, gotten all these medical awards, but he was a humble, gracious… He made God visible for me.

Jim: Yeah.

Philip: And over the years, we kept coming up with more material. Th- that was back in the… I think the first book came out in 1979. And I did not want the legacy of Dr. Brand to disappear. Medicine has changed a lot in 40 years. They had just barely discovered DNA when (laughs) we were first writing. And so, I, I wanted to go back, and I took the best of two books, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image, combined them, and updated the science, updated the medicine, and just, uh, wanted to keep alive the memory and the example of Paul Brand.

John: Mm.

Jim: Something you said, I really have to punch, there, because that just caught me, uh, when you said, “He was a man whose faith made him better.”

Philip: Mm.

Jim: What a litmus test.

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: Isn’t that the point?

Philip: (laughs).

Jim: I mean, w- uh, really we should each reflect on that, to say-

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: … “Does my faith make me a better person?”

Philip: Right.

Jim: And if it’s not, you may wanna reconsider how you’re displaying your faith.

Philip: Yeah. And when I go around, Jim, that’s one of my concerns. Uh, sitting in an airplane, I’ll often ask, “When I say the word ‘Christian,’ what’s the first thing that comes to mind?” And often, they’ll say things… Well, they’ll, they’ll say, “Oh, those are moral people or upright people.” But sometimes they’ll say, “They’re bigots.” “They’re um”-

Jim: Mm.

Philip: … “self-righteous.” You know? What a… That’s a condemnation because we’re, as Christians, we’re not self-righteous. All (laughs) of our righteousness comes from God. And if you find a person who really is that humble servant but yet is using all of his gifts, as Dr. Brand did, for some of the lowliest people on the planet, you just stand back and say, “Oh. That’s what Jesus was like.” In-

Jim: Yeah.

Philip: … Philippians 2, you know, he, he turned aw- down the prerogatives of God and became one of us, and washed our feet, and was a servant. And if we can show that, then that’s something that it cuts so much a- against the grain of a success-

Jim: Yeah.

Philip: … celebrity, or, or, or in a culture-

Jim: Yeah.

Philip: … that it gets your attention. You say, “Oh, that’s what God was like.”

Jim: Let me, let me get in, uh, to the book, uh, specifically some of the systems of the body-

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: … which you and Dr.-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … Brand talked about. It’s so beautiful. So often, Philip, I’m feeling like God is making it so simple. Of course, the Word says you could look at His creation and see Him.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And that’s really the essence of what you’ve done, here. Talk to us about the bone, the skeletal system.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And what does it depict spiritually for us?

Philip: Mm-hmm. Well, Dr. Brand tells stories of, um, people who are missing parts of their bones and, uh, uh, like a, a section of the bone has been removed because of cancer in an arm. And then nothing works the way it’s supposed to anymore, you’re… because they’re so intricately connected with muscles, and tendons, and all that. And they work on a fulcrum, a triangulation of different sinews and, um, ligaments working together. You have to have a hard skeleton to hang on. Look at an octopus. An octopus (laughs) just kinda squishes around-

Jim: Right.

Philip: … can’t climb stairs, can’t do a lotta things. And it takes an internal skeleton structure to allow us to do things like walking, or for a bird to fly. You need those hard bones. And it’s easy to say… Uh, I’m a skier, for example. Uh, it, it’s easier to say, a lot of people break their bones in skiing, “If only God would… had made bones bigger and thicker and harder.” Well, (laughs) actually, they’re beautifully proportioned. If God did that, there are a lot of things that we couldn’t do: We wouldn’t have the, the ability to do other athletics. I loved hearing Dr. Brand talk about the wonders of the human body. In fact, even the things that are, are a little bit repulsive to us, uh, any time I would bring something up like vomiting, he would say, “Oh, what a wonderful thing, vomiting.”

Jim: (laughs).

Philip: (laughs) Here you’ve got these-

Jim: He doesn’t have young children.

Philip: Yeah (laughs).

Jim: (laughs).

Philip: …these muscles and structures that are all designed to push food down, but when you have the wrong kind of food and you wanna get rid of it-

Jim: Right.

Philip: … they find a way to reverse and do the opposite, and then sneezing, the same things, and coughing, diarrhea. Anything I would bring up, he said, “Oh, what a wonderful (laughs) mechanism we have to protect the human body.” And engineers, when they look at the human body, they think, “I, I don’t see how it could be improved.” Doctors get used to it. Doctors assume that if you put two muscles back together, somehow they’ll, the fibers will go like this and grow together. They assume that the heart will repair itself. I mean, that’s just what organs do. Engineers look at that and say, “How does that happen?”

Jim: Right.

Philip: “My robots can’t prepare… repair themselves, and they’re not nearly as, as smoothly functioning.”

John: Mm-hmm.

Jim: Yeah. You mentioned the spiritual parallel, I guess, is the best way to say it, with the bone structure, that when a bone breaks, um, you know, what it does. And you’re describing that damage. Uh, relay that to the spiritual parallel that you and Dr. Brand talked about in the book, that, uh, th- the skeletal system is like the core truth.

Philip: Right. Um, well, I would say probably the closest parallel would be the Ten Commandments. Those are the, the 10 things that God came up with to… for a society to work. And for a society to work, if everybody told the truth, you know, if we didn’t have to worry about somebody stealing my password and, and robbing-

Jim: Right (laughs).

Philip: … my bank account, and if, if companies didn’t have to worry about people stealing things from them, and, and if we could trust people, what a wonderful society that would be. And God laid out, “Here’s how a society should work.”

Jim: Right.

Philip: That’s the way it works best, not coveting. Don’t go around resenting other people who have more than you do. Just be content with what you have. And, and if you go through, those are kinda the, the hardcore skeleton of faith. But then you get to the New Testament, and Jesus says, “You can actually sum up the entire Ten Commandments in this: Love God,” (laughs) “And love your neighbor as yourself.” So, it’s the internal skeleton of faith. On the outside, you don’t see the skeleton. But it makes possible the love that we’re supposed to give in the world.

John: Mm.

Jim: I mean, that is really, a- again, I think nature screams, “God is there.”

Philip: Yeah.

Jim: And that’s what you’re uncovering. Eh, as I understand it, uh, we have about 35 trillion blood cells in our body.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: But we don’t think much about (laughs) the, uh, cells in our body until we start maybe losing them at a drastic rate or whatever, however they get outta kilter, uh, from a bloody nose to some kind of a cut where the platelets do their job to block that cut. Uh, for those of us who don’t remember their biology class (laughs)-

Philip: (laughs).

Jim: … explain how our blood is also such a spiritual dimension.

Philip: Hm. There’s a lot of blood in the Bible, a lot of uses of the word blood. And one of the most interesting and new thoughts, to me, that I heard from Dr. Brand was we tend to think of the communion service as a time to commemorate death because we reflect back on Jesus’ death. He said, “Actually, if you look at the Bible all the way through, the Old Testament especially, blood stands for life. ‘The life of the flesh is in the blood,’” it says in Leviticus. And when Jesus gave the, the instructions on at the Last Supper, he used the image of the vine and the branches, and he said, “You need to be connected to me.” If you’re connected to the vine, then you can produce fruit. If you’re not connected, it’s like these branches up there, they’ll just shrivel and die; they’re no longer connected. And that blood is really a symbol of God’s life flowing through us; we are participating in that. He also goes on to say, “Blood, it cleanses.” And when I first heard that, I thought, “How does blood cleanse? When I get blood, I wanna immediately find some spot (laughs) cleaners and Tide and clean it off my clothes.” And he said, “No, here’s how blood cleanses: As it goes through your body, not only is it providing oxygen, and nutrients, and things like that, but every one of your cells is producing this waste material. And the blood cells that are going through,” those trillions you mentioned, “the blood cells are taking a cargo load of those toxic chemicals”-

Jim: Of waste.

Philip: Of waste, “and getting rid of them.” And he said, “You can figure that out very quickly. Take a blood pressure cuff. Put it around your arm. And make it tight. And for a while, there, you don’t feel anything, but after a few minutes, you feel excruciating pain. Why? Because you’ve blocked the blood from going down into the rest of your arm and taking away those toxic chemicals.”

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Philip: And blood is a cleansing agent. And so, Dr. Brand, who is a medical doctor, found ways that I would never have thought of that showed the spiritual parallel, how blood is, is the living connection to the source of life. And then, blood is also a cleansing agent.

Jim: And you’re y-… I think you’re, um, m- m- aiming in this direction, but I wanna be very specific. In the book, you speak to the issue of Communion-

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: … that the bread represents the body of Christ, and the, the juice represents the blood of Christ. Speak at the end, here, and we’re gonna come back, if you’ll stick with us-

Philip: Okay.

Jim: … and talk more about this subject.

Philip: Sure.

Jim: But let’s end on this good note of what it means, the communion service, and what it’s getting at. It’s a tough one to convey to people that don’t get it.

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: And they don’t even understand, uh, “Why are you pretending to eat Jesus’ body?”

Philip: Mm-hmm.

Jim: “And why are you pretending to drink his blood? It’s grape juice. You’re, uh…” So I wanna get it down to a very elementary level, here. Give us the Communion theology.

Philip: Yeah. I think it’s intentional that Jesus chose two of the most common elements of the day, bread, (laughs) bread is everywhere, every culture, and then wine in those days, um, and said, “These can symbolize the life that I have that will energize you.” In fact, he kinda scandalized followers in his day who s- uh, when he said, “Eat my flesh. Drink my blood.” H- He didn’t mean literally, obviously, ’cause he’s standing there as a complete human being. But what he said was, “The most basic, ordinary things in life can be a symbol that reminds you that your strength comes not from yourself but from something outside. And you can take it into yourself, and you can metabolize that. And that can give you energy and cleansing, cleansing from sin, very clearly, and then the nutrient that you need to be part of me, to live like me.”

Jim: Mm. That is so good. And I hope our viewers and listeners are catching that. In your book, Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image, uh, man, Philip, this is fascinating stuff. It’s a great read. And I so appreciate Dr. Paul Brand, who’s passed away now. He had some amazing insights about our physical nature and how it shows the spiritual nature of how we are made in God’s image. Uh, Philip, I hope, like I said, we can stick with it and continue to talk about this content. Can we do that?

Philip: Let’s do it.

Jim: All right. And let me encourage you to get Philip’s book. Uh, we can make that available when you make a monthly pledge of any amount to Focus on the Family. We’re counting on friends like you to join our ongoing support team. A pledge means you’re committed each month to strengthening marriages, and equipping parents, and helping us spread the good news of Jesus Christ so together, we can help families thrive. And if a monthly is too much, uh, we get it. Uh, a one-time gift is also very helpful. And it will allow us to send you this book as our way of saying thanking for partnering with us.

John: Get in touch today. Donate as you can. And, uh, request your copy of Philip’s book Fearfully and Wonderfully. Uh, that’s available when you, uh, stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

Jim: And one more thing I wanna mention is Focus on the Family Celebrate Life live experience, which is coming up next month, August 28th. And we’ll love to have you join us in person at the American Airline Center in Dallas. This is our main pro-life event of the year with inspirational speakers and musicians and other believers all networking together to change hearts and minds in today’s culture about abortion. And there’s several ways to get involved. We have a prayer guide and a series of videos that we’ve been releasing this summer. And all the details are on our website. And I really wanna encourage you to check it out. And please join us in Dallas on August 28th if you can do it.

John: Our website, once more, is focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Or call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we hear more insights about God’s design of the human body and, once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.