2014-05-28 - Blinded

I believe most people have a way or two of getting themselves back to center, when life has a way of pulling on them. For me, one of those ways had always been basketball. I was not always at my best in game situations, but was a pretty good shooter, on or off the court. So shooting basketball was a way I could take my mind off of other things, get a little exercise, and then go about the rest of my day or evening.

One night, less than a year after my Mom died, I went out back to shoot ball. It began to get to dusk and then darkened, with the sun slipping away for another day, but the floodlight came on, and that was fairly helpful for the most part. There were, however, a couple angles from which I was blinded by the light, and it began to annoy me. Somehow, the activity that was to help me blow off steam was really not working. So I stopped for a minute and thought to myself, “just shoot it anyway, whether you can see or not”. Oddly enough, a few of the shots went in, even though I could not see as well or even at all. I began to think more about the reason I even went outside in the first place. I had been struggling with how my father in heaven felt so far from me, at a time I needed him to be close. When I asked Jesus into my heart about fourteen years before that night, I wanted to have a familial relationship with the Father. But as a human being, it's often difficult to feel that, when we cannot visually put our eyes on God. But don't we? He puts people in our lives - and situations in front of us, along with beautiful scenery, all the time - and those things can give us a better view of him. And while my mother was also a flawed human being, she was made by him and put in my life, so I would have a better picture of him, too. It was odd, then, that the floodlight making it impossible for me to see the basketball rim well, had in fact helped me to see something ever-so-clear.

All at once, it occurred to me that my mother's love did not change because she was not visually accessible to me any more, by being with me. How much more does the one who formed me in her womb, care for me whether or not he is physically in the room with me? And how hard is it for God not being able to share in some of the things he allows others to do with, us by sending them? He doesn't enjoy our having to deal with sadness at all, and he really is right there with us when we are experiencing things while we are on our journey. Through earthly relationships, God teaches us about ourselves, about other people and ultimately about Him. He had to make man in the flesh to fulfill his plan, yet there are parts of it that don't thrill Him either. It's his word that tells me this is true.

Genesis 6:5-6 (KJV)

5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

John 11:33-40 (KJV)

33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.
34. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
35. Jesus wept.
36. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
37. And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
38. Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
39. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
40. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

“He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. “ (John 12:40 KJV)

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. “ (2 Peter 3:9 KJV)

Deborah Durrett

cfpraydeb@gmail.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org

All scripture references are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.