{"id":472,"date":"2007-01-31T20:30:30","date_gmt":"2007-01-31T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2007\/01\/31\/blind-from-birth\/"},"modified":"2007-01-31T20:30:30","modified_gmt":"2007-01-31T18:30:30","slug":"blind-from-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/31\/blind-from-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind from Birth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love to teach on the field and I love to come home.<\/p>\n<p>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.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>But I really love to teach and it really is easier when you have a good group.<\/p>\n<p>I was struck anew today at our last stop at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bibleplaces.com\/poolofsiloam.htm\">Pool of Siloam<\/a> by what Jesus said to the disciples.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, &#8220;Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?&#8221; &#8220;Neither this man nor his parents sinned,&#8221; said Jesus, &#8220;but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the way I understand it, Jesus was saying that this man was blind since birth <em>just so<\/em> Jesus could heal him and God would be glorified.&nbsp; That is mind-blowing, especially if you believe that God exists to serve man.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps there is some application to your life.&nbsp; Maybe you&#8217;ve always been able to see, but perhaps there is something else that God caused\/allowed so that he would be glorified.&nbsp; Maybe someone hurt you, or you have some physical limitation, or there&#8217;s some other inexplicable trial.&nbsp; I wonder if maybe that wasn&#8217;t an <em>accident<\/em>, that maybe God <em>wasn&#8217;t<\/em> asleep that day, that maybe God had a deep and mysterious plan that you may not learn about until you&#8217;re really old or dead.&nbsp; But perhaps God knew that he would receive greater glory from\/in\/through you because of it.<\/p>\n<p>Two thousand years later, we&#8217;re still telling the story of God&#8217;s marvelous grace on a man born blind.&nbsp; What the world would have lost if he hadn&#8217;t suffered all those years.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px\" height=\"300\" alt=\"Pool of Siloam, May 2005\" src=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/01\/WindowsLiveWriter\/5921b2c67dd1_11F54\/Pool%20of%20Siloam%20steps,%20tb051905969%5B5%5D.jpg\" width=\"400\" border=\"0\"> <br \/><em>Pool of Siloam<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.&nbsp; But I really love to teach and it really is easier when\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/31\/blind-from-birth\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}