What were you born with that you have wished all of your life was
not a part of who you are? We all have insecurities and
personality quirks, things we don't like about ourselves.
And for Barbara Rainey, it was her shyness.
You may never see the reason why God did this in your life this side
of heaven. You may never experience traumatic healing like the man
born blind, but you can know without question that God did not
make a mistake in your life. Today we'll find out how
we can have that kind of confidence because of Jesus.
Welcome to the Barbara Raney Podcast from Ever Thine Home,
dedicated to helping you experience God in your home.
Thanks for listening.
In this three episode season of the Barbara Rainey Podcast, we're
about to listen to a message that she gave a few years back during
a women's retreat at the COVID near Asheville, North Carolina.
You know, everyone has longings. Everyone is thirsty.
God designed us to find our ultimate satisfaction in Him.
The problem, of course, is that we search for satisfaction in
things other than Him. In this message,
Barbara helps us see that He, God, Father, Son,
and Spirit is enough. Let's listen to part one.
Here's Barbara Raney.
How many of you have read the Chronicles of Narnia to your children
or you've read it yourself? Most of you, but not everybody.
Okay, this is going to be fun because some of you are going to hear
hear one of my favorite authors and something that he's written that I think
is just as good for adults as it is for kids.
So I brought my My lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe book and I'm going
to read us a little story this morning. Everybody loves to
be read to you, right? So this is the story
of four children who found their way into another land through the back of a
wardrobe. And they were there. And here's what happened in
chapter seven. Shh, look, said
Susan. What? Said Peter. There's something moving among
the trees over there to the left. They all stared as
hard as they could, and no one felt very comfortable.
There it goes again, Susan said presently. I saw it that
time, too, said Peter. It's still there, just behind that big tree.
What is it? Asked Lucy, trying very hard not to sound
nervous. She was the youngest.
They all saw it this time, a whiskered furry face which had looked
out at them from behind the tree. But this time it didn't draw
back immediately. Instead, the animal put its paw
against his mouth, just as humans put their finger on their lips when they're
signaling you to be Quiet. Then it disappeared again.
The children all stood holding their breath.
A moment later, the stranger came out from behind the tree and glanced around as
if it were afraid someone was watching. Hush, he said.
I know what it is, said Peter. It's a beaver. I saw the tail.
It wants us to go with him, said Susan. It's warning us not
to make a noise. I know, said Peter. So the children
got close together and walked up to the tree. And there, sure enough, they
found the beaver. The beaver said to them,
are you the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve? It
said were some of them, said Peter. Shh, said the
beaver. Not so loud. We're not safe even here.
Why? What are you afraid of? Said Peter. There's no one here but
ourselves. There are the trees, said the beaver.
They're always listening. Then it signaled to
the children to stand as close as they possibly could so that their faces
were actually tickled by his whiskers.
They say Aslan is on the move, he said. Perhaps
he has already landed. And now a very curious thing
happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more
than you do. But the moment the beaver had spoken these
words, everyone felt quite different.
Shh, said Mr. Beaver. Not here. I must bring you where we can have a
real talk. And also some dinner. So the children
followed Mr. Beaver to his little home built out of sticks. They
crawled in the home, and Mrs. Beaver was there cooking dinner. And they
sat down and they all had dinner and they talked. And after
dinner was over, they said together, yes?
Please tell us about Aslan, several said at once. For once again, that
strange feeling, like the first signs of spring and like good news had
come over them. Who is Aslan? Said Susan.
Aslan? Said Mr. Beaver. Why, you don't know? He's
the king, he's the Lord. He's the lord of the whole wood. But he's not
often here, you understand. Never in my time or in my father's time.
But word has reached us that he will come back. He is in
Narnia, and he will make everything right.
But shall we see him? Asked Susan. Why, daughter of Eve. That's
exactly why I brought you here. I'm to lead you to him, said
Mr. Beaver. Is he a man? Asked Lucy asked.
Man. A man? Said Mr. Beaver sternly.
Certainly not. I tell you, he is the king of the Wood.
And the son of the great Emperor beyond the Sea.
Don't you know who is the king of the beasts? Aslan is a lion.
The lion? A great lion.
Oh, said Susan. I Thought he was a man. Is he
safe? Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about
meeting a lion. That you will, dearie. Make no mistake,
then he isn't safe, said lucy. Safe, said Mr. Beaver.
Don't you hear what we said to you? Who said anything about
safe? Of course he isn't safe. But
he's good, I tell you. He is the king. He is the
king. So we're going to talk about this God of
ours who is good. He is very good.
But he isn't always safe.
And all my life I've wanted a safe God. I don't know about you, but
I wanted a safe God that I could understand, a God I
could figure out, a God I could kind of put a
formula to or some kind of system of rules to. So I knew how he
worked, so it made sense to me. And I've learned the truth
of Mr. Beaver's words, that our God is very good, but he
is also not always safe. But I have
learned that he is enough for my past and for my present
and for my future. So this morning we're going to look at three different
scripture verses about God the Father,
one about God the Son, and about God the Holy Spirit, the
Trinity. And we're going to look at who they really are. And we
want to. I'm hoping that as we do this, we will be humbled
before their majesty and we will be led to worship.
First, we're going to talk about God the Son, and that he is enough
for your past. God the Son is enough for your
past. And we're going to look at a passage in the Book of John. But
before we do that, I want to tell you that there's a context to this
passage. In fact, there's a context to all of the ones we're going to read,
because all of Scripture is written in the context of other things that
are happening. And there are two things of context that I want you to be
aware of as we read it. The first one is the word believe.
There are 84 uses of the word believe in the Book of John.
That's a lot of repetitions of one word. Jesus
uses the word believe over and over again as a line in the sand,
asking everyone in various ways, who do you
believe that I am? There's no middle ground with
Jesus on belief. Either we believe or we
don't believe. We're in unbelief.
And in the context of our lives, where we find ourselves today, Jesus
is still asking us today, who do you believe that I
am? Interestingly I looked up the word believe,
and in the Greek, it's. It's a feminine verb. And
I find it fascinating. I'm still hoping I can get to do some study on
this more someday. But English doesn't have masculine and
feminine assignments to all of our words. Our words are
just what they are. But there are a lot of languages that have masculine and
feminine verbs, masculine and feminine adjectives and
adverbs and nouns. Spanish does, Greek does,
French does. A lot of them do so in Greek, the word believe is a
feminine noun. It means a conviction of truth. It means believing
in God, in divine things, with the idea of
trusting and having holy fervor. And it
reminds me of the story of the woman, the women who went to the tomb
on Sunday morning. I think the women had a greater
capacity to believe, and I think that's a part of the reason why the
word believe is a feminine noun. Because I think we do.
I think that's why Eve believed the serpent. I think we have
a greater capacity to believe. Now, nobody has told me this,
who's a great theologian. But as I've looked at the way we're
wired, the way we operate, one of the greatest gifts my
husband says I've ever given to him is that I believe in him. And I've
always believed in him. I believe in my children. And that
belief empowers and fuels and strengthens those that
we love. And I think that the women who went to the tomb,
their faith in who Jesus was, was rewarded when they saw him
first. I think Jesus honored and recognized their faith.
They're quick to believe in him. Faith when they went to the tomb.
So the word of. The word belief is a part of the context
of, of the story in John. And then secondly, this
story is in John, chapter nine. So if you've got your Bibles, you can turn
there now. But the timing of this story is really interesting.
It's the halfway point of Jesus ministry. Two
months earlier, Jesus had just been in Jerusalem and he had celebrated
the feast of Tabernacles. And at the feast of Tabernacles, he had
claimed to be the light of the world, which created a ruckus
among the Pharisees. But he had stood up and said, I am the
light of the world. Well, this story in John chapter nine is
happening in the month of December. And then
this month is the feast of lights. The feast, the festival of lights.
And it's. We call it Hanukkah, or we know it as Hanukkah.
So we're going to look at the story of John, chapter nine real quickly.
Verse one says, and as he passed by, he saw a
man blind from birth. I want to talk for a
couple of minutes about this man who was blind from birth. First of
all, Jesus saw this man. The man didn't see him because he was blind.
He couldn't see. But Jesus saw this man, saw his
need, saw his heart, recognized who he was. And he
knew, because he was fully God, that this man had been blind from
birth. He knew that he needed help. Now think
about this man in his life growing up. If he was born without
sight, how did he function in the world?
He had to have help for everything. So from the time he was born, he
was dependent on people for everything. For his food, for
his clothing, for his sustenance, for everything.
This man was needy. When we look at the passage, we think
he was probably of age, which meant he was probably 30 because he was
allowed to go into the temple. He was grown. And I thought
about how did he feel as a kid growing up, or how did he feel
as a teenager or even as a young man? And I would
imagine he felt left out. My guess is there were times he
was rejected. I think there were probably times he was made fun
of. There were probably times when he was not allowed among
the community of believers, because in those days, anyone who had something
wrong with them was unclean and they were cast out.
And I'm wondering if he was trying to get well, did he have
hope anymore that he would get well? I
don't know, but he'd always been this way. So I think it's
entirely possible that he had no hope of ever being
healed. I wonder if he had lost his
initiative. So in this story, just in verse one,
we see that this man did not take the initiative, but Jesus took
the initiative to reach to him, which is what he has done
in all of our lives. We love because he first loved us.
Jesus loved this man, and he reached out to him,
verse 2. And his disciples asked him, saying, rabbi,
who sinned this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?
And I just love this because this is so who we are. The disciples
wanted to know, not, are you going to heal him? Not what
are you thinking about this man? They wanted to know whose fault it was.
Why did they want to know whose fault it was? Because they
wanted to avoid a similar fate. And I think it's an issue
of control, quite frankly. They didn't trust
God. We don't trust God because we think we can manage this. We think
we can control the circumstances if we just figure out what's really
going on below the surface. And then
verse three, Jesus answered and said it was neither that this man sinned
nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of
God might be displayed in him. He didn't rebuke them for
asking the question, he let them ask the question
and he turned it and showed them what the truth was. And the truth
was, is that God wanted his glory to be seen.
He wanted those who were there to watch Jesus power
and who he really was. There's a verse that I
think is really interesting, Exodus 4:11. And the
verse says this God said to Moses, who
made man's mouth or who makes him dumb or deaf
or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord
who was behind this man's blindness? It wasn't the parents
fault, wasn't the man's fault. It
was God who had his glory in mind. It was God who
wanted to do something to demonstrate who he was to
to people. God intentionally made this man blind.
That kind of sits wrong with us, doesn't it? Because we think of our God
as a good God and he is a good God, but this is where he's
not always safe. God intentionally made
this man blind. He intentionally subjected him to
decades of life with a handicap, a disability,
and the man suffered for it. We don't like that
kind of God, do we? But the reason
he did it, Jesus makes it really clear in verse three. Because God had a
higher purpose in mind to display his glory.
And as I thought about it, I thought if the man had been born whole,
he would have never experienced the wonder of being healed.
He wouldn't have appreciated it. But he lived with this
blindness for so long that when Jesus healed him, he was
exuberant. If you read the rest of the chapter, he couldn't stop talking about
it. He was jumping up and running around and telling everyone what had
happened to him. And we would too, right? The man knew he was
blind and he understood his need for healing. Now
I want to turn this to us. What
handicap were you born with that has never left you
since birth? My handicap was not anything
physical that could be seen or measured like blindness or deafness.
My handicap, I always felt like, was that I
was shy and I was insecure and I was quiet and I
didn't. I wasn't comfortable with people. And I remember
going through high school and noticing people who were really
popular and they had fun and they talked easily. And I
remember thinking, why can't I be more like those people? Why can't I
be like those friends of mine that I knew that I'd probably been
in elementary school with? Why can't I be like that?
And I tried to be different, and I couldn't break out of my shell.
And it followed me all of my life. And I always
felt like if I didn't have this, if I wasn't made this
way, if I wasn't made to be cautious and quiet and
think things through, if I could be more like these other people, I would be
happier, I would have more fun. People would like me.
I could be popular. I remember one day,
years later, I was married, I had kids, and I was still
struggling with this and feeling insecure, and I just didn't like
the way I was. And I was driving somewhere and I just had this thought
out of the blue, which of course was God himself, the Holy Spirit.
And he reminded me that it was important for me to
be that way. He said, you don't know what you escape. You
don't know what you were saved from because you were not a part of that
group of kids that you long to be a part of. And I went,
yes, Lord, you are right.
I shared this story with a group of women about a month and a half
ago at a retreat. And one of the ones in the group
is we all shared. It was a much, much smaller retreat, and we all shared
what our handicap was. And one woman said, I
always felt like the odd person in my family because
everybody else in my family, all my other siblings were just like my parents,
and I was so different from anyone else. I always felt like
the odd one out. I felt like I was a mistake my whole life.
And it was a really powerful time of sharing what we have
felt trapped by our entire lives. So I want you to
think for a second. What were you born with that you have wished
all of your life was not a part of who you are? Write
that down on your notes if you know what it is.
You may never see the reason why God did this in your life this side
of heaven, you may never experience dramatic healing like the man
born blind, but you can know without question that God did not
make a mistake in your life. You can know he meant it for your
good and he meant it for his glory that the works
of God might be displayed in you. The story of a
man born blind finishes with Jesus going and finding this man and asking
him, do you believe? Do you believe in
the Son of Man and the blind man who was now
seeing said, yes, I believe, and he fell on his face and he
worshiped Jesus. So my question for you and
for me Will you be like the blind man who recognized his
need, who believed God intended good for him?
Or will you be like the disciples who wanted control?
It takes faith to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, is
enough for your past, and to believe that God knows what he's
doing as he wisely allows even the difficult things in
our lives. That's Barbara Rainey from a message she gave at a
retreat for women a few years ago. I hope
you'll take a moment to browse through the articles, resources
and podcast episodes on Barbara's Substack page.
She wrote an epic poem that covers the entire Bible.
It's called the Wonder of the Word, and you can check out
more information about it on Substack. Just go to
barbarainey.substack.com
in this episode, Barbara showed us why God the Son is
enough for our past. Next up, we'll hear part two of
Barbara's message. She'll explain what she means by her statement,
God the Father is enough for our present. I'm
Michelle. Thanks for listening today. Join us again on the next
episode of the Barbara Rainey Podcast. From Ever Thine Home,
Sam.