“When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he. He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him. “
John 9:35-38 ( NAB)
The blind man was healed by Jesus, and his sight was instantly restored, but afterward he went through an unexpected, harsh interrogation in the temple. When the authorities weren’t satisfied with his answers, they threw the man out of the temple.
He couldn’t understand why he was being punished for being healed. Jesus later approached the man and asked him if he believed in the Son of man, and his answer was, “Who is he, that I may believe?”
Sometimes, even when God answers our prayers, we may not understand fully, His way of answering. The blind man was interrupted from enjoying his healing, because both he and his parents were dragged into the temple for questioning, as if they committed a crime. Unexpected times of adversity can interrupt our ability to enjoy a blessing, but Jesus returned to the man to help him move forward in his faith and focus on Him. Jesus is standing before each of us as well, to help us refocus our faith on Him.
We will have moments in our lives, when we ask a lot of questions which start out, who, what, where or how. The best way to move forward during these difficult times is by answering the most important question. Our answer needs to be as the blind man’s, “Yes Lord, I believe.”
When the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness, they prayed for food, and God sent them bread, but they didn’t recognize it as bread from heaven. The people called it “Manna” and in Hebrew, Manna is “Ma na?” meaning “What is it?” The people were full of questions, quickly growing tired of manna, and asked Moses what else they can eat.
God is doing many things in our lives that we do not fully understand. He is answering our prayers even though we may not understand His answers. Haven’t we all prayed for something and then the answer appears to be completely different from what we imagined ? We all have had moments where we asked God, “What is happening, Lord?”
It’s not wrong to ask a question, when we cannot recognize His answers, but what we learn from the blind man, is that there is one best answer for all questions, “Yes Lord, I believe.”
Mary, upon hearing from Gabriel, that she, a virgin, conceived a son and would mother the Messiah. She responded with the question, “How can this be ? but later she accepted it by faith and said, “Be it done, according to your word.”
When Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well about living water that only He could give, she asked, “Where do you get this living water?”
Each person asked questions, but in the end they all found the same answer to every question, “I believe.”
The answers to our prayers are coming, but it may not be as we expected. Who, what, where and how, starts every question we may be asking God, and yet He is very patient with all our questions, as we know from how patient Jesus was in His interaction with others.
Before my son’s motorcycle accident, he decided to reject all belief in God. He joined an Atheist Facebook group, and estranged himself from his family, who are all believers. Everyone had been praying for him to come to faith and then we received the news of his accident, coma, and brain injury, and now an inevitable long, slow recovery ahead.
It wasn’t the way we expected our prayers to be answered, but God is good, and He answers every prayer, according to His goodness. He may answer in ways that cause us to ask many questions, yet God’s ways are above our ways, and His thoughts are above our thoughts. Only He sees the big picture, and in all that He does, His purposes are perfect.
The Lord might be asking us a question, “Don’t you believe in Me?” In every difficulty, we can give Him one solid faith filled answer. Since we do believe, we can answer Him as the blind man did, or as Mary, or the woman at the well, and many others did, saying “Yes Lord, I believe.”
Lord, in these trying times, and with all the questions we have, we want to reaffirm our answer to your most important question, saying, Yes Lord, we believe in you, and in your answers. Let your will be done in our lives, according to your perfect purpose. Amen