I’m a details person, I like to break down things into step by step instructions; create a bullet point list of things that need to be accomplished to hit a goal. I’m not real good at living in the big picture of things.

Today I’m challenging myself to see and understand there is a bigger picture; not so much in work or home projects but in how God is at work in our lives.

I’d like to share some verses from John Chapter 9 to help illustrate this point, starting with verse 1:

As he (being Jesus) passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (keep in mind during those days any birth defects or challenges in life were attribute to sins committed). ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

We learn later in the story that this individual was “of age” or likely an adult, say 20+ years old. So, this poor soul had to suffer, had to beg for 20+ years so the ‘works of God might be displayed in him’, to just be an example? Our, or at least my initial reaction was “that doesn’t seem fair”. Yet, that right there is the lesson. We see everything in our life through our human lenses of the issues at present and only seem to focus on those, the day to day, week to week or even year to year, we don’t see the big picture of how God is working at a much grander scale through those sufferings. We can all think of things that God has allowed to happen to us or to those we love and it can be incredibly hard to reconcile in our mind.

As we continue to read in John 9 we see that Jesus goes on to heal the man:

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed and came back seeing.

Later in the chapter the once blind beggar is brought before the Pharisees; they wanted to question him and interrogate him as they did not believe the stories they had heard and they wanted to silence anything that would appear to give Jesus power or credence. They do some back and forth, the man proclaiming the work of Jesus, that He had come from God, the Pharisees would push back and even in verse 34 say “You were born in utter sin (again, in their perspective this man’s former defect was a result of sin), and would you dare teach us?” They then decide to cast him out of town to help keep any of this story quiet from the public. So, this man who was born blind, was a beggar for 20+ years is finally given his eyesight and hours later it cast from town? Again…how unfair? After the man was cast from town we read in verse 35:

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”^{[c] 36} He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”

³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Again, a man born blind, a beggar for 20 years, finally given his eyesight and his reward is to be cast out of town….yet through all of that he worships Jesus. It appears that in an instant all those years of transgression and suffering were forgotten or dismissed, that they didn’t matter anymore, he didn’t ask ‘why’ or question the years of pain that no longer hurt him, this man had seen and felt the love of Jesus, his heart and eyes had been opened, that he was now forever changed.

There are many questions we as Believers don’t have answers to. Personally? For me? I’ve accepted that there are simply things in this life that I, being sinful and human, won’t come to fully understand and even be frustrated by, but I know that through the hope I have in Jesus at some point all will be revealed. That someday I, like the blind man, will forget all the transgressions and pain, have my eyes and heart opened to His plan and want to worship our Lord & Savior.

Photo Credit Joshua Earle via Unsplash.com