How Can God be Glorified through This?

     Although we are getting ready to study James, my mind has been in the Gospels lately. I want to spend a few minutes before we begin James thinking about the account of Jesus healing the blind man in John 9.
     "As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
       This is often the first question we ask when we encounter things that are not right in the world or in our own lives. Whose fault is this? Who can I blame? Who should I be angry with? So the disciples asked, "Who sinned?"
      Jesus' reply turns us around.  He points our thoughts in a totally different direction. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."
      I'd like to begin James thinking this way. Sure it's about trials and nobody likes trials. Our purpose statement says,"James wrote this letter to his Jewish brothers for the purpose of correcting wrong thinking which would not support them through their trying circumstances. So lets begin thinking differently right from the beginning. Let's develop the habit of living life with this question paramount in our minds: no matter the circumstance, how can God be glorified through this. Not whose fault is it. Not why. Not how do I get out of it. How can God be glorified?
     Jesus healed the blind man... a man blind from birth. It was such an unbelievable miracle that some people said, "It's not him, he only looks like him." [vs. 9] And although it was a true miracle, it also became a parable.
     "Jesus said, 'For judgement I have come into the world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.'" Of course the Pharisees who were with him were very offended by that, but Jesus pursued the point. "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."
      Those of us who claim to see God need to always pursue seeing him fully and accurately and living out of that place of knowing him. What is he doing in the world? What is he doing in my life? James makes it very clear that those who know and claim to love God should first and foremost submit to his will. We can't have it both ways; pursuing our own course of action along with God's. How can he be glorified in this circumstance? We will never fully know unless we let Him do what He wants.