Daily Devotional for March 14

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March 14                                                           John 9:18-41

  Once I Was Blind, But Now I Can See

When the blind man of yesterday's reading came back healed,
the religious authorities angrily refused to believe that Jesus
had anything to do with the healing. "Give God the praise,"
they said; "we know that this man is a sinner," to which the
healed man could only reply, "Whether he is a sinner, I do
not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now
I see."

Like the healed blind man, few of us are theologians, and there
will always be those who challenge us to give an acceptable
explanation of the kinds of things that happen in such simple
and powerful encounters with Jesus. In his book, The Taste
of New Wine, for example, Keith Miller tells us about a woman
who, after experiencing a deeper walk with Jesus, also found
healing from a depression, a condition for which she had been
taking medication for years. He notes that, when she tried to
tell her pastor about this unsought blessing, she encountered
only hostility and suspicion, probably a result of the pastor's
inability (or unwillingness) to see the experience from her point
of view.¹

In such circumstances, we would do well to follow the exam-
ple of the healed blind man by simply sharing our experience
and our joy in it, without attempting to formulate dogma or
generalize from our personal experience. The testimony of a
changed life speaks far more eloquently than any theological
treatise or dogmatic proof could ever do.

            Thought for today: I will be happier and more
      effective if I simply introduce my friends to the Jesus
      that I have learned to know from my own experience,
           rather than insisting on their assent to specific
                          creeds or religious dogmas.

¹Miller, Keith, The Taste of New Wine (Waco, TX: World Books, 1965), p. 105.

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From The Road to Emmaus - An inclusive devotional Edited by Joseph W. Houle

Emmaus House of Prayer - Washington D.C.