The Blind Paradox

29 January 2022

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Welcome back, my faithful Cronies!

Many Christians do not get any response to their prayers, regardless of years of persistence, sadly because they are blind to the answers. One of the most frustrating things in life as Christians is to pray fervently about things and yet have no answers. God is our ever-present help in times of need (Psalm 46:1), and as Simon Peter rightly said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68).” Therefore, if we turn to Him and we don’t get answers, then all hope is lost. I call this the blind paradox.

More often than not, the reason we don’t receive answers to prayers is that, God may have provided what we are asking for already, the problem may be that, we haven’t seen them. And God does not like to waste resources. Jesus once said, “Gather the crumbs, that one should not be missing (John 6:12).” In such a situation, there is no way we will receive what we are praying for because God cannot re-provide what He has already provided.

The Father Of Faith

Abraham was a man who walked with God in faith. As a matter of fact, he was the first person to pioneer the ‘walk of faith’. The Bible names him 309 times because of his remarkable gestures of faith.

His name is woven upon the historical fabric in the Ancient New East (ANE) and the world at large. God had promised him that he would become a father of many nations. Abraham was wondering how that promise was going to be fulfilled since he was extremely old and his wife Sarah had passed her ‘double menopause’.

In Sarah’s quest to expedite and to ‘help’ God fulfill His promise, she suggested that Abraham had an affair with her maidservant, Hagar. Abraham reluctantly did the bidding of his wife and Ismael was born out of that. Not many years later, “Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him (Genesis 21:2).”

Do As She Tells You

Abraham named him Isaac. “So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned (Genesis 21:8).“ Sarah told Abraham to sack Hagar and her son Ismael. Understandably, Abraham was headstrong, “how can I sack my own biological son”, he asked. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring (Genesis 21:12-13).”

At this juncture, the old man Abraham, with tears streaming down his cheeks, sent Hagar and Ismael away with bread and a bottle of water. “Then she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba (Genesis 21:14 (KJV)).”

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept (Genesis 21:15–16).

God Opened Her Eyes

As she was shedding tears, and the imminent death of her little boy and herself casting images on her mind, “God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him (Genesis 21:17-18).” Now, the bible says,

then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink .

Wait a minute! All this while, there was a well of water close to them, and even though she wasn’t blind, she couldn’t see it until her spiritual eyes were opened. Tragically, such has been the story of many believers, what they are praying for is close to them, but they simply can’t see it. There are some things that even physically blind people perceive better than sighted people. Since physical sight makes up 90 percent of perception, sighted people can be a bit slower in really appreciating the vast array of stimuli generated through the other senses [1]. There are many prayers that have been answered, but the people who said those prayers simply cannot ‘see’ the answers released.

The Journey To Emmaus

Again, after the death of Jesus, two of His disciples were going to Emmaus, a town about seven miles from Jerusalem (Luke 24:13). They started to deliberate on the trending issue in town (the unfair murder of Jesus). On their way going, Jesus joined in the conversation, but they didn’t recognise Him.

Then they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as if He were going farther. But they urged Him [not to go on], saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening, and the day has just about ended.” So He went inside to stay with them. And it happened that as He reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were [suddenly] opened [by God] and they [clearly] recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight (Luke 24:28-31 ).

Is that Jesus?

In this passage, the two disciples couldn’t recognise the Lord because as much as their physical eyes were opened, their spiritual eyes were closed. These two disciples had pressing questions, and fortunately for them, Jesus Himself was around to answer them, yet tragically, they couldn’t make Him out.

It is not enough to pray to God about stuff, we also need to pray for our eyes to be opened to the answers God releases. Much of the struggle we go through as Christians will be curbed if our spiritual eyes were to be opened. Many people have missed their divine helpers because they showed up in a way they did not anticipate. One important prayer to pray is to ask God to open your eyes to see the answer He has provided for your prayer.

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References

[1] John Miler, “Blindness as a paradox”, link: http://blindnewworld.org/blog/blindness-as-a-paradox.

Updated: 10th October, 2022.

Samuel Daniels