On purpose - For a purpose

The wind is blowing and the air is filled with music; all because I pulled a set of wind chimes out of the garage and hung it up by the door.

I bought a bundle of dry pack daffodils and after a day in water you can see how they have blossomed into a beautiful bouquet.

Daffodils in a box, wind chimes in a building, a blind man…

In John 9 there is the story of a blind man who Jesus and his disciples come upon on their way to the temple. The disciples inquired “Lord who has sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” It was a common assumption of the day. The answer was surprising “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." He’d been born blind for the purpose of God’s glory.

Each of these three had a purpose that wasn’t realized until they were put in the right situation.

The wind chimes had to be out in the breeze, the daffodils needed to be in water, and the blind man had to be met on the road by the Son of God; and then each fulfilled the purpose for which they were intended.

The wind chimes and daffodils are easy to understand but the blind man in a little more troublesome for me. This man lived until he was an adult unable to see, all because God knew that one day his story would be recorded in scripture as a testimony to millions. I wonder if this man knew this before he had his sight if that would have been of any consolation to him?

I also wonder what situation we find ourselves in that has a purpose for which we as of yet have no idea. For thirty years this man lived in darkness, thinking it was because of someone’s sin that he’d been born this way. For hundreds of weeks he erroneously thought he knew the cause of his blindness.

We know that God’s ways are beyond our own ways – we know this but somehow we don’t always connect the dots that the reason something might be happening in our lives might be for a purpose greater than we realize and of which we have no idea.

Perhaps we are not yet where we must be to get the answers.
The wind chimes were quiet until they were put outside. They had everything else they needed to make for their melodious composition except the right place.

I hold on to this hope for myself feeling like a dry pack bunch of daffodils. I see within me is the potential to flourish; however I'm currently not in a vase of water for which there's this purpose. I’m working on a degree for which I have no clear idea as to what I’ll “do” with it when I’m done: adding tools to my toolbox but not yet knowing what I’ll be building.

Can we trust God that He knows what He’s doing? I read a quote by Peter Marshall that, once translated from its old English syntax, struck me right between the eyes – careful, it may do the same to you –

“Forgive us, O God, for our little conception of the heart of the Eternal, for the doubting suspicion with which we regard the heart of God. Give to us more faith. We have so little...we say. Yet we have faith in each other - in checks and banks, in trains and airplanes, in cooks, and in strangers who drive us in cabs. Forgive us for our stupidity, that we have faith in people whom we do not know and are so reluctant to have faith in Thee who knowest us altogether."

A breeze, a vase, the touch of the Savior’s hand; only God knows what He has yet to bring into our lives for us to fulfill the purpose for which we were created.

Can we believe that He will? Can we have faith in Him who knowest us altogether?