The Enemy Who Is Your Friend (I of III)

Compared to more recent blogging topics, this blog will be a breath of fresh air–but neither easy nor fun in any ordinary sense.

Recent months have not been easy. I was visited late last year by a thumb injury that by all appearances ensures that I will spend the rest of my life with one good left hand aided clumsily by another ham-fisted... well... ham-fist. I was once right-handed.

Events like these force difficult questions. Questions not unlike those posed by Jesus' immediate disciples.

John 9:2
His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

We like to think we've come a long way in understanding the mind of God. In those darkened days of primitive ignorance, it was widely assumed that if you were rich, it was because God loved you. And if you were sick? Diseased? A sure-fire indicator that you had sinned pretty badly.

Thus the confusion! If the guy was born blind, he hadn't had a chance yet to sin! So... did his parents screw up? We know someone earned this misery. But who? Jesus set them straight.

John 9:3
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Yes, we all know that now, though these words shocked the disciples. What?? Nobody sinned??

Chuckle, chuckle. We know better, today. It was just a medical condition. And God wants it to be healed.

But let's be honest. We're no more enlightened than Jesus' disciples. All we have managed to do is exchange one half-truth for another. The disciples erred in thinking that only people God loves are blessed with health and material possessions. And us? We err in thinking that God loves people too much to take such things away from them.

Jesus sets us straight, too, if we have ears to hear what he actually said. "This happened". "So that". "The works of God might be displayed".

Let that sink in for a bit.

Jesus didn't say, "It was a random accident, but I'm gonna fix it." Jesus didn't say, "Things go wrong because of the fall, but God didn't do it." No. Jesus said it happened. So that. God's works might be displayed.

That's not a popular thought. And if you doubt me, try telling your friends this one: "I believe that God has orchestrated events so that my better hand will be maimed for the rest of my life."

A few of my closer friends nod and agree. But many do not. Some seem even to take offense at the notion.

So to those who are not ready to swallow words like these, let me ask. If God didn't do it, who else do we suppose made the man blind, for the purposes of God's glory? Who else had sovereign control over the events in that man's mother's womb?

All this came home to me again when I recently listened in my car to the book of Ruth. Ruth is one of my favorite books, bar none. So I've read it many times. On this last pass, I was struck again by Naomi's words.

Ruth 1:13b
No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!’

Naomi has been visited by unspeakable sorrows. She has outlived her husband and both of her sons. Her words touch all of us who have ears to hear: those troubled by sorrows as well as those free of major disappointments. But are her words true? Is Naomi blaming God for things he didn't do? Or is Naomi right in her finger-pointing? In short... Is God himself behind Naomi's problems?

To be continued...