Blind from Birth

I love to teach on the field and I love to come home.

I just finished a series of Jerusalem trips which were somewhat more challenging than others because of my health, the large group size, the weather and a few other factors. 

But I really love to teach and it really is easier when you have a good group.

I was struck anew today at our last stop at the Pool of Siloam by what Jesus said to the disciples.

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

According to the way I understand it, Jesus was saying that this man was blind since birth just so Jesus could heal him and God would be glorified.  That is mind-blowing, especially if you believe that God exists to serve man.

Perhaps there is some application to your life.  Maybe you’ve always been able to see, but perhaps there is something else that God caused/allowed so that he would be glorified.  Maybe someone hurt you, or you have some physical limitation, or there’s some other inexplicable trial.  I wonder if maybe that wasn’t an accident, that maybe God wasn’t asleep that day, that maybe God had a deep and mysterious plan that you may not learn about until you’re really old or dead.  But perhaps God knew that he would receive greater glory from/in/through you because of it.

Two thousand years later, we’re still telling the story of God’s marvelous grace on a man born blind.  What the world would have lost if he hadn’t suffered all those years.

Pool of Siloam