In John 9 the apostle relates a story of a blind man receiving his sight. Jesus' disciples asked him if the man's blindness was due to sin, either his own or that of his parents. "No", said Jesus, "but that the works of God may be displayed in him".
The man was healed after Jesus had "made him eyes of mud and spit" (my version) and the man had washed in the Pool of Siloam. He soon became a champion of Jesus' cause. He went so far as to insult the religious leaders, for which he got kicked out of the synagogue.
What I have never heard anyone preach on, was the fact that the man could have responded very differently. He could have thought "What kind of a God would let me suffer without sight from birth so that he could show off his own power?"
We are confronted every day by events which we can attribute to God's goodness or to his indifference to our feelings. The man could have blamed God for thinking only about his own and Jesus' reputation and lacking compassion. If he had done that, he would have just demonstrated his own egocentricity.
No comments:
Post a Comment