Day Seventy-Eight: Missing the song that God is singing
Day Seventy-Eight: John 9 / Jude 1
I restrung my guitar a few days ago. Embarrassingly, it was the first time I had replaced the strings since January 2011. Usually my D string snaps and then I restring them all but it hadn't snapped (it was incredibly frayed though). Anyway, for months I have been playing these dull, slightly out of tune, dirty, frayed strings. The weird thing was that after I had put the new strings on it sounded weird. I had become so accustomed to the dull sound that the new, fresh, proper sound just didn't seem right. It was peculiar.
When I was reading John 9 this morning I got the feeling that the Pharisees had a similar problem. They had become so used to the old, rigid, law-based way of doing things that they could not even see something amazing right in front of them! Because it did not sound like their legalistic rules, they couldn't accept the Son of God right in front of them. They got angry with Jesus and the fact that he healed on the Sabbath, to the point where they interrogate the blind man that could now see!
I love his response: "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (John 9:30-33) I don't ever want to get to the point where I am missing out on the beautiful song that God is singing because I have got caught up in my own selfish, legalistic way of doing things.
I find this really challenging and I hope that as you reflect after reading this you will too.
I restrung my guitar a few days ago. Embarrassingly, it was the first time I had replaced the strings since January 2011. Usually my D string snaps and then I restring them all but it hadn't snapped (it was incredibly frayed though). Anyway, for months I have been playing these dull, slightly out of tune, dirty, frayed strings. The weird thing was that after I had put the new strings on it sounded weird. I had become so accustomed to the dull sound that the new, fresh, proper sound just didn't seem right. It was peculiar.
When I was reading John 9 this morning I got the feeling that the Pharisees had a similar problem. They had become so used to the old, rigid, law-based way of doing things that they could not even see something amazing right in front of them! Because it did not sound like their legalistic rules, they couldn't accept the Son of God right in front of them. They got angry with Jesus and the fact that he healed on the Sabbath, to the point where they interrogate the blind man that could now see!
I love his response: "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (John 9:30-33) I don't ever want to get to the point where I am missing out on the beautiful song that God is singing because I have got caught up in my own selfish, legalistic way of doing things.
I find this really challenging and I hope that as you reflect after reading this you will too.