As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. John 9:1
In 1978, a young, athletic girl named Joni Eareckson dove from a small floating raft into the Chesapeake Bay. Immediately her head struck the bottom of the bay, breaking her neck and severing her spinal cord. In preparing to dive, this seventeen-year-old swimmer had stood on her feet for the last time in her life.
Forty-five years later, I was on the phone with Joni. Our mutual interests in publishing had brought us together as colleagues and dear friends. On this day I was feeling low. I was overworked and maybe even feeling a little sorry for myself. In the process of our conversation, I heard Joni tell me that she’s looking forward to heaven.
Of course, I remember thinking, you’ll be able to get back on those legs and dance up a storm. But I was wrong. Joni had something else in mind. “I can’t wait to meet Jesus,” she told me. “I’m going to present Him with one of my old Everest & Jennings wheelchairs, and I’m going to thank Him for the privilege He gave me to live my life as a quadriplegic.”
I was stunned. Speechlessness is common evidence of being in the presence of a saint. “Are you serious?” I returned.
“I sure am,” Joni answered in a lilting voice many people around the world have come to love. “This chair has allowed me to see God and to share in Christ’s suffering. If it weren’t for my disability, I wouldn’t know Him or love Him as I do.”
Joni’s words were ringing in my ears as I read the story of the disciples challenging Jesus with a tough question about a blind man: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). Even today, this issue haunts many people, believers and skeptics alike.
But not being bound by time or space, the sovereign God of the universe had already met Joni when His disciples popped this question. He had also met countless saints who had, because of their suffering, brought unmistakable glory to Him. He answered them with lots of evidence to support His thesis: “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him” (v. 3).
You and I may never experience the devastation of a severed spinal cord. Or we may live our lives with our eyesight intact. But we’re going to experience pain, loss, doubt, and grief. We will question God’s judgment in allowing us to be so severely set back. We may ask whose sin provoked this pain.
No one’s sin brought this on. God’s purposes are always the same. He acts, He moves, He decides our futures based on our ability to deliver praise to His holy name, to display His splendor (Is 61:3).
Jesus healed the blind man. He did not heal Joni. He may heal you or restore your health or your net worth, or He may not. But regardless, our task is—and will always be—to rest in His grace. To trust in His provision. To celebrate the outcome. Regardless. Our charge is to take comfort that, though we may be in the midst of darkness, He is the light of the world.
The blind man didn’t even need to be healed to see this Light. He knew the Light was there; he believed, then he saw. Thank God for the pain. It provides for us the privilege of seeing and glorifying Him.