"Was it this man's fault, or was it his parents' fault, that he was born blind?" That's the question the apostles asked Jesus when they encountered the man born blind. In biblical days it was common to lay blame on someone when bad things happened. It had to be somebody's fault. We still like to lay blame on sick people for many of their illnesses. "They didn't exercise enough." "They didn't eat the right things." "They didn't stop smoking," and so on. We're not too far away from the pre-Jesus mindset of wanting to assign blame for whatever goes wrong in our lives.
But how does Jesus answer the apostles' question? "It wasn't his fault, or his parents, that this man was born blind. It was to show forth the glory of God." So, instead of assigning blame for whatever goes wrong in life, we might do better to look for the glory of God in whatever goes badly.
What exactly, then, is "glory"? "Glory" is "getting one's way," like a football team winning the Super Bowl: they get their way; they win! So, if we are to give God glory even when terrible things happen, then we are saying to ourselves and to God: "Lord, in the way I handle this, You will get Your glory; You will get Your way. So, Lord, keep me free from bitterness, free from sitting on a pity pot, free from resentment, from blaming anyone. Set me free from anything that would diminish Your getting Your way in the manner I contend with what I am faced with. This will be how my difficult circumstances will show forth Your glory."
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