“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3)
Expanded Passage: John 9:1-3
I am extremely nearsighted without my contacts, far beyond the threshold for legal blindness. Whenever I read stories of blind people in the Bible, I realize that if I had been born there and then instead of here and now, this story could be about me. Instead of a professor, I would be fully dependent on other people. I may not have known the joy of being a husband and father. I would have had to beg.
There are also drawbacks to being born today. Someday there will be cures for diseases that are death sentences today. There are ways in which people in the past were able to see some things more clearly than we are today. Others from the future and the past would look at our modern life and see tragedies—and joys—that we can’t see.
Jesus teaches that our historical circumstances are not only limitations—they’re opportunities. Our weaknesses become opportunities for God to show his strength. Our strengths become opportunities for God to work through us for others. Two thousand years ago, I would be blind, and God could show his power through my weakness. But because I am living today, God’s power can be seen in my strength as I preach and lead—and even as I write this for you. Neither our strengths nor our weaknesses are beyond the reach of God.
Give your circumstances to Jesus, and he will use them.
J. Michael Jordan is associate professor of theology at Houghton University, and the author of Worship in an Age of Anxiety (IVP, 2024).
© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
