Who is the Blind Man?

Mile Board 42.70

A new year just began and already this first month has reached the midpoint. When winter seasons appear to pass more quickly, I am forced to face stark reality, that I am becoming older and that I may now be nearer to the end of my life than the beginning.

In these last few weeks I have struggled to find some sense of purpose in life thus far, but all that remains is only another question. “Does it matter if life does not have a perceptible sense of purpose?”

I do not have an answer because I have never considered this possibility before. Therefore another question surfaces, “Why does existence itself demand that life have a specific sense of purpose or meaning that is relevant only to one’s own perspective?”

Of all the people mentioned in the Bible, Jesus told us that the blind man’s purpose was to be given sight by Jesus to fulfill the scripture. When one considers the years of the man’s life in blindness and misery, his purpose up to that moment was simply for his encounter with Jesus. The few minutes the blind man spent with Jesus were limited, yet those few moments were the true purpose for the blind man’s being. 

Do the blind man’s years of blindness seem fair or unfair? 

Does the blind man’s purpose in life seem great or small?

I can ask these questions and debate possible answers, but who am I to question God’s sovereignty and God’s purposes? 

Job already asked the deepest and most soul-searching questions relative to his circumstances and knowledge, but God answered by asking, “Who are you to question my ways?”

No, life does not always seem fair from the limited perspective of human understanding. Nonetheless, knowing, understanding and accepting this reality about life does not keep me from running to the front of the line when complaining about life and demanding explanations.

What then is truly the God-intended purpose for my life?

Most assuredly for me, and probably for most of us, the raison d’etre will be something considerably less than having been born blind and then personally given sight by Jesus.

We can speculate and guess by looking backward to see where we have come from and recall the route we have chosen and then try to make sense out of the journey, but in fact, we may never know what our God-intended purpose in life is.

Nonetheless, I have a direction in which to face and a person I can look toward. He is the same Jesus who gave sight to the blind man.

January 15, 1997

The Oddblock Station Agent