Hey everyone! I haven't written a blog in a while. I apologize. I honestly have no idea what to write though. I keep starting blogs, and then I just don't know how to finish the thought, or the thought never really had a "finish", or I was just writing because I felt I had to, since it has been so long since I posted last. So here I am, still not knowing what to blog about.
One of the things I have been kind of sad about for the World Race is that I won't have all of my old notebooks with me, with all of my old sermon notes and journal entries. I plan on copying over some of my favorites to a notebook that I will be taking with me, but it still is something that kind of bums me out. I mean, I'm not the same person I was when I wrote those things, whether it was 4 years ago, or last week, but I still like being able to read back over them to see what God has taken me through, and how he has taken me through it.
Getting stuck on this blogging thing turned me to one of my favorite stories in the Bible, as do most things. Matthew 9:27-30 says:
As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, shouting, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" When He entered the house, the blind men approached Him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I can do this?" "Yes, Lord," they answered Him. Then He touched their eyes, saying, "Let it be done for you according to your faith!" And their eyes were opened.
Okay, I'm just going to completely pass the part where Jesus restores their sight. Not because it isn't important, or miraculous, or amazing, because it is all of those things, and more. I'm going to skip that part because I want to focus on the blind men. I'll probably come back and write something about healing a in a while. But I want to talk about these two men. Think for a second. Have you ever been blind? Have you ever tried to find someone while not being able to see? Have you ever had to find someone in a huge crowd while not being able to see? I don't know what this is like, but I imagine it is pretty difficult. Especially considering that everyone in this crowd was trying to get close to Jesus. Everyone. And these men persevere, and make their way to Jesus. Why?
Because they have faith. But here's another cool part. These men have never seen Jesus. They have never actually seen Him perform a miracle. There is no proof for them that Jesus can heal except what they hear people saying about Him. Of course it makes sense for the people who can see Jesus to be trying to get close to Him, but these two blind men have only what they hear to go off of. And even then, their faith is astounding.
They persist even though they haven't seen Him. They believe with their whole hearts that Jesus can make them see, and He does. We are the blind men. At first, we only have the stories of Jesus, written down in the Bible or other's testimonies, to know about Him. Once we open ourselves up to Him, we begin to have our own testimonies about Jesus that we can share, but at first we just know what others have told us. We can't see Jesus, but we need to trust Him and what He can do. And He isn't always going to answer us right away. These men had to follow and call out to Jesus for a while. We need to be pursuing Jesus with everything we have, with reckless abandon.
That's what I want. Faith like these two men. Because even though I can't physically see Jesus, I just have to keep pursuing, and He will continue to reveal Himself to me. He will continue to take away blindness so that I can see Him more and more clearly all around me.
I'm not sure where that all went. It kind of got away from me. Some of you have heard this from me before. Like I said, it's one of my favorites. Hopefully you stay encouraged to persevere through whatever you may need to. Jesus has you. Jesus loves you.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:8-9
He persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Hebrews 11:27
