Find freedom in faith

But God’s faithfulness never ends May 29, 2025

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith [many translations say faithfulness instead of faith], gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Lamentations 3:22-23 The faithful love [hesed] of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

“Great is Thy Faithfulness,” we sang at my dad’s funeral, his favorite hymn. “Morning by morning, new mercies I see.” God’s faithfulness anchored him through incredible challenges and trials, even through failures.

And Dad’s death was just the beginning of his story. After his death, we sibs let our imaginations fly as we pictured him in Heaven with all the time in the world to indulge his many passions and interests. Why could we do this? Because God’s faithfulness is ETERNAL. It doesn’t stop here.

“One day at a time” has been my instinctive response when people ask me how I survived the Karis years. “Sometimes one hour at a time. Counting on God’s faithfulness, his manna for this one day.” Thinking about an elusive “tomorrow” was too overwhelming. I gripped God’s faithfulness for this moment, this challenge. And then the next one. I lived this way for 30+ years.

Karis’s move to Heaven–I’m so curious about what she’s been up to there in her ongoing experience of God-s faithfulness!–didn’t automatically change me. Living intensively in the present, without margin in my life for worrying about the future, became so habitual that for better or worse, it’s with me still. I’m able to engage with this morning, or today—maybe that stretches out now to thinking about this week. But I plan for and set personal longer term objectives in only the vaguest of terms, such as “I want to publish three books this year, so I’ll have them to take to homeschool conventions next spring.”

(Unless I see that my lack of planning will negatively impact others. That somehow feels different, requiring more detailed attention to “how” something could be done.)

“How exactly will you accomplish this?” my husband asks of my vague desires. He wants a Plan, as do our mission leaders. I’m immediately flooded with stress and a compulsion to retreat, to give the whole thing up. I think, “If God wants me to do this, he’ll show me how.” But my ideas about what I want to do aren’t the most important thing. I need to stay flexible to understand what God is asking of me on any given day.

Is that the kind of faith Paul is talking about? Or is it irresponsibility; just an excuse handily available (principally to myself) if I don’t reach my “goals”? The jury is out.

Vine’s says pistis, the word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22, is used in the New Testament always of faith in God or Christ. It’s not faith in myself or faith in other people or circumstances. It’s not even faith in God’s promises. It’s persistent trust in God’s faithfulness, rooted in personal surrender to him, himself.

For me, this is freedom. It’s not all up to me. The weight of the world is on HIS shoulders, not mine. I just have to do my wee part.

Here’s the cool thing: even faith in God’s faithfulness is not something I have to generate. It’s something the Spirit produces in me.

My part is giving him space in my soul to do his work. And then letting his faithfulness motivate me to live faithfully.

Faith and Wonder, Meredith Andrews

Kindle kindness

But God reveals his kindness through Jesus

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Luke 6:35-36 [Jesus said] Love your enemies! Do good to them. … Then you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.

An act or word of kindness, especially when undeserved or unexpected, can instantly move me to tears.

It can be as thoughtful as my husband washing and putting away the dishes to ease my way when I came home exhausted from an intense day.

It can be as generous as a friend paying me for work I would have been delighted simply to do for her, meeting a need I had expressed to no one.

It can be as compassionate as a friend saying, “Of course you feel this way today,” instead of judging me for a wave of grief for my daughter triggered by a certain date on the calendar.

It can be as merciful as the judge in traffic court reducing my penalty for speeding.

It can be as gentle as my five-year-old granddaughter placing her hand on my shoulder as I lay on the couch on her home with a migraine, saying “I hope you feel better soon, Grammy.”

It can be as gracious as a friend speaking well of me to a new acquaintance.

All of these expressions fit within chrestotes, the characteristic of love in Galatians 5:22 most often translated kindness or gentleness.

When have you most recently experienced or practiced chrestotes?

Critical, unkind judgments and words seem to appear frequently in our political and social discourse. What if we Christ-followers intentionally turn this around? Might our Spirit-kindled kindness spark more gentleness in each one of our spheres of influence?

An old song comes to mind. Perhaps you remember this! Here’s more info about this 1912 song.

Practice patience

But God gives us power for patience

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Colossians 1:11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all God’s glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy.

“What? It won’t arrive for two weeks!?”

This was my reaction when I recently ordered a birthday gift for a person I love. I own my part in our impatient society.

But patience with delayed gratification isn’t what Paul is talking about in Galatians 5:22.

Since the gift arrived, two more weeks have passed without me actually placing the gift in my friend’s hands. Her birthday was in April! I finally gave it to her yesterday.

My forgetfulness required patience on the part of my friend—not patience regarding the gift itself—she didn’t care about that—but loving patience with me in my impatience with myself.

This relational patience as a dimension of love is what Galatians 5:22 is about.

This week I’ve been deliberately noticing my own impatience. Here’s one example: I noticed I was frustrated when I realized my book The Giggly Bug might not be out by the end of May. Yet I hadn’t fully considered the impact on my publisher of the unexpected death of the person who had been scheduled to put my book together, a beloved man who had worked there for thirty years, who held the company’s history in his mind and heart.

My impatience became relational.

And their response? Out of love for me, they doubled up on my book so it can be out by the end of May—in fact, they sent me the proofs yesterday afternoon. I deeply appreciate the patience of the folks at EA Books, since I’m on an unending learning curve. While professional, they prioritize their relationships.

Until I started deliberately noticing my impatience, I might have thought I’m a patient person. Now I realize how much I need God’s power (glorious power, Paul says!) to strengthen me in my practice of love manifested in patience.

Please, Holy Spirit, grow more agape patience in my soul.

I think this is interesting:

Two Greek words are most often translated as patience in the New Testament. Hupomone is endurance under trials and undeserved affliction. Makrothumia (usually translated in the KJV as “longsuffering”) is self-restraint in the face of provocation, especially by other people. Colossians 1:11, quoted above, uses both words, translated in the NLT as endurance (hupomone) and patience (makrothumia).

In Galatians 5:22, Paul uses makrothumia. Vine’s says this kind of patience “does not hastily retaliate or punish.” It’s the opposite of both anger and despondency. It’s imbued with both mercy and hope.

Makrothumia has to do with our relationships. Hupomone relates more to resilience.

So, this reference surprises me: “Be patient (makrothumia) as you wait for the Lord’s return” (James 5:7). I would have expected hupomone in this context. Could James be more concerned about how we treat one another than about our endurance through suffering while we wait for the Lord to make everything right?

“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient (makrothumia) with each other, making allowances for each other’s faults because of your love” (Ephesians 4:2).

Wage peace.

But God’s “weapons” are mighty

Galatians 5:22-23 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

2 Corinthians 10:3-5, 8 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty [dunamis, Acts 1:8] weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. … Our authority builds you up; it doesn’t tear you down.

A friend recently spent several days investing in a historically and potentially fraught family situation. When I asked her how it went, she said, “I decided my mission was to ‘wage peace’ as Lauren challenged in her sermon.” (This is the sermon I recommended to you in my last post.) By God’s grace, my friend was able to see wonderful results from her time waging peace.

Yesterday, Josh Bennett followed up on Lauren’s sermon, discussing the enemies we are fighting. You can hear his remarkable sermon using the same link—it should be posted today. I know I’ll be re-listening to both, since they resonate so clearly with how I want to live and grow. The “warfare” we face is impossible without the Spirit’s action on our behalf and without the fruit of the Spirit as Paul elaborates in Galatians 5:22-23.

“Fruit” in this passage is singular, not plural. We can say there is one fruit, agape love. The other virtues describe the Spirit’s love. In the last blog, I talked about joy. God’s love is joyful.

God’s love is also peaceful. How then can I associate it with warfare?

The response is counter-cultural, the dramatically different value system that Josh calls us to. This peace is eirene: agreement and harmony among parties, with a resulting internal sense of wellbeing. Loving ourselves and others is to live in concord with God, aligning ourselves with him, with his values and priorities. When you listen to Josh’s sermon, you’ll see how radically different this is from our culture and the way most people think about life and relationships.

When we’re centered in God’s love for us and for others, we will experience internal wellbeing that allows us to “wage peace” nondefensively. Our energy is freed to look outward in blessing rather than being preoccupied with our own needs. I’m sure you’ve experienced, as I have, the wounding that comes when we try to meet our own needs and ambitions through manipulation, domination, or other kinds of dishonoring of other people. When instead we “wage peace” in God’s way, empowered by the Spirit, we have the chance to see healing instead of destruction of our relationships.

And when we’re in harmony with the Lord, we aim not to align others with us, but with God. We desire that they experience God’s love, his healing, his direction, his—yes—his peace.

Counter-cultural. Not my way. Not the world’s way. The Kingdom way.

Father, Let Your Kingdom Come, Urban Doxology

May the works of my hands bring you joy.

May the words from my mouth speak your peace.

Father, let YOUR Kingdom come.

Repair

But Jesus sees right into our hearts Lenten/Easter question #20

John 21:15-19 After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” …

Normally, Pittsburgh weather is what my grandson Caleb calls “boring.” The main question we have to ask at this time of year while nature is bursting into all its bright colors is whether it will be raining or whether we’ll be blessed with a few coveted hours of sunshine.

Tuesday, though, broke the mold. No, not a hurricane or even a tornado, as I explained to Caleb–I was at their house when the storm hit. But we had wind gusts up to 80 mph that killed three people; according to our local news:

Tuesday evening’s storm left a wake of destruction in the Pittsburgh area. Large oak trees toppled from the strength of the winds and roofs were torn off of buildings. Duquesne Light said restoration across the area could take five to seven days, calling the event “unprecedented.”

Over 400 workers rolled into town yesterday to aid Duquesne Light with restoration efforts. We were without power for only 24 hours. The main thing we have to show for it is this “storm art.” Pretty cool, eh?

For our daughter Rachel’s family, though, the adventure is ongoing. “Fireworks!” my granddaughter Liliana exclaimed looking up at the electric pole by their house as she and her sister arrived home from preschool in a torrent of rain, with downed wires on the sidewalk. We hope some of the emergency workers will make it to their neighborhood today. Unfortunately, everything in their house is electric, including their stove.

Here’s what the electric pole right by their house looks like, with the top section snapped off and lying precariously on other wires:

Photo by Rachel’s husband Brian

Needless to say, they’re not parking by their house right now!

All this pales before the devastation, self-inflicted, Peter experienced after Jesus’s arrest in Gethsemane. Just that evening he had declared, “I’m ready to die for you.” Instead, he buckled at three suggestions that he was associated with Jesus. Luke tells us Peter went out and wept bitterly (22:62).

The time has finally come, in this last chapter of John, for Peter to confront his cowardice. Just as he had denied Jesus three times, Jesus asks him, reverting to his old name, the name used in Luke 5, “Simon, do you love me?”

Interestingly, Jesus asks Peter twice, “Do you agape me?” Agape is supernatural, grace-filled, absolutely dependable love. But Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know I phileo you.”

The third time, Jesus accommodates Peter. Apparently, he recognizes phileo (brotherly or family love) is all that Peter is capable of claiming at this moment. Jesus has made his point. He has steadfastly loved Peter with agape love through thick and thin, and this is what he wants Peter to grow into.

Agape is the love Jesus shares with his Father. In his prayer for his disciples recorded in John 17, Jesus says, “I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love (agape) for me will be in them” (John 17:26). Jesus wants all of his followers—you and I included—to experience and practice agape.

In his little book The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis delves into the diverse nuances we miss because four different Greek words are all translated into one English word “love.” At the same time this wordplay is going on between Jesus and Simon Peter, though, another dynamic is at play. Jesus has been preparing Peter to lead. What will Peter’s leadership look like, when Jesus is no longer around to be the leader?

Jesus sums it up in two simple phrases: “Feed my lambs,” the Shepherd tells him (can you feel the affection?) and “Take care of my sheep.” “Be like me in this way too,” I hear Jesus speaking into Peter’s brokenness. “Care for others in the same gentle, committed, insightful, sacrificial way I am caring for you right now.” THIS is leadership in the Kingdom (see Matthew 20:25-28), the same servant love Jesus demonstrated in washing the disciples’ feet.

It’s a reprise not just of Luke 5, but of John 13 after Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, just before Jesus warns Peter he will deny Jesus. “I am giving you [all the disciples] a new commandment: Love (agape) each other. Just as I have loved (agape) you, you should love (agape) each other. Your love (agape) for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

How’s that going in your part of the world?

Reprise

But Jesus is a master of reconnection Lenten/Easter question #19

John 21:3-5 Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come too,” they all [six other disciples] said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night. At dawn, Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”

Luke 5:10 (Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17) Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!”

Sudoku. That’s my “go to” when I want something familiar and comfortable. When I’ve been stretched mentally, socially, spiritually, or emotionally. What I love about sudoku, beyond the satisfaction of solving the puzzle, is the fact that there’s only one right answer. The rest of the world may present confusing, chaotic conundrums and confounding challenges. Sudoku is “safe.”

The disciples do something similar in John 21. They are comforted, of course, by knowing Jesus is alive again, but he “randomly” shows up and then disappears again. It’s not clear, though, what happens next. Without his leadership, they don’t know what to do with themselves. Peter and Jesus have not yet dealt with the elephant in the room, his three-fold denial. Beyond his grief and self-recrimination, I’m sure he feels disqualified from the leadership role Jesus had been mentoring him into.

Going fishing, a familiar throwback to the disciples’ old lives before they met Jesus, promises a time out, an activity they can do with confidence and competence. Sunshine above them sparkling on the water, the fresh breeze, the creaking and smells of the boat, the feel of the nets in their hands, the joy of working together with beloved companions, of doing something (not just waiting for Pentecost), the anticipation of roast fish … Ahhh

How often do you do something similar when you’ve been overwhelmed, stretched beyond your comfort zone?

There’s a lot more to Jesus’s simple question “Have you caught any fish?” than a request for information from someone wanting to cook fish for breakfast. John 21 is a masterfully creative reprise of Luke 5 that only an omniscient designer could have achieved. To appreciate it, re-read Luke 5:1-11. For a vivid visual, watch The Chosen’s interpretation of this so-important day in Peter’s life.

“Don’t be afraid! From now on you’ll be fishing for people!” Jesus told Simon, whom he later renamed Peter (Luke 5:10), in a lifechanging “But God” moment Peter doubtless never forgot.

Fast forward a year and a half. “Have you caught any fish?”

I see Jesus accomplishing several things with this question, beyond the disciples’ physical need for nourishment after fishing all night.

*Jesus validates their deeper calling, to be “fishers of men,” a calling they had ample reason to abandon, after they abandoned Jesus in his hour of deepest need.

*Jesus refocuses their attention, after the trauma of the crucifixion and the confoundment of his resurrection. In essence, I think he’s saying, “It’s time to get back to the real work—you know what to do.”

*With his invitation to breakfast (v. 12), Jesus tells them he still cares about them; he still treasures time with them; the rich conversations they had shared on countless such mornings, tramping around Palestine; the friendships they had all cultivated with each other.

*Jesus sets Peter up for the final questions he asks in the gospel of John, the subject of our next post, the last of our “twenty questions.”

Eyewitness

But Jesus shows us the Father Lenten question #16

John 14:8-9 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!“

Colossians 1:15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

Hebrews 1: 3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

I’m trying to write a book to help kids understand the Trinity (right—as if I understand the Trinity!). Scriptures about the relationships between the Father, Son, and Spirit have fascinated me for a long time.

Bear with me here while I try to articulate a few thoughts. If you’re familiar with Karis’s story, you know that she loved to share her faith with Muslim people, in Arabic if that was their heart language. To the extent that she could, she became part of the Muslim community here in Pittsburgh, both in and out of the hospital. She had always wanted to live in North Africa. That was not possible because of her health, but God surprised her by bringing Arabic speakers here, in large part because her chief transplant surgeon was Egyptian.

When I think about Philip in this passage from John, I feel like I understand him better because of what I observed through Karis’s friendships. It seemed to me that our Muslim friends had an “Old Testament” faith, as of course did the Jewish people before Jesus came to earth. They talked about God in similar ways to what I hear even from Christians when they reference the “God of the Old Testament”: majestic, holy, distant, judgmental, punishing, strict, deserving of all our devotion but unknowable, too far above and beyond us to feel any true intimacy in relation to him.

My Old Testament professor in college tried to dissuade his students of this perspective of God as revealed in the most ancient Scriptures. He believed the Father’s love shone through just as much in the Old Testament as in the New. But I’m not sure he was very successful about changing our minds. After all, people DIED by even touching the Ark of his presence to keep it from falling onto a rough road (2 Samuel 6:6-7). Despite the passages describing God’s love and care, God in the Old Testament inspired more terror in us than affection.

If Philip carried some of these same sentiments about God the Father, it’s not surprising that he did not immediately connect Jesus—the Jesus he watched heal and gently care for people, the Jesus he walked, talked, ate, slept, laughed, and wept with—as being the same as the God he knew.

That’s largely the point of the Incarnation, right? That Jesus would give people a more accurate understanding of the Father’s heart and character. Without knowing Jesus, would Dr. Schultz have “read back” into the Old Testament the nature of God as essentially loving? I don’t know. “My Father and I are one,” Jesus said again and again.

John’s passion for this theme comes out in his three letters to the churches. Try to put yourself in his place—try to imagine for a moment that you have never understood these truths—and feel John’s excitement as he wrote,

We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning,

Whom we have heard and seen.

We saw him with our own eyes

And touched him with our own hands.

He is the Word of life.

This one who is life itself was revealed to us and we have seen him.

And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life.

He was with the Father; and then he was revealed to us!

We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard

So that you may have fellowship with us.

And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

We are writing to you so that you may fully share our joy.

1 John 1:1-4

Has YOUR idea of God been transformed by knowing his Son, Jesus?

Counter-cultural humility

But Jesus took on the role of a slave Lenten question #15 April 15, 2025

John 13:3-5, 12-17 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him. … After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? … Since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. … I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master.”

Philippians 2:6-8 Though Jesus was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

I’ve always loved books like The Prince and the Pauper and The Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro, in which a person appears ordinary, concealing the fact that he or she is playing a grand role in a lifesaving, history-changing endeavor. The bumbling Clark Kent, aka Superman, is another example, as is Rand (the Dragon Reborn) in The Wheel of Time. Do you have favorite stories with this theme?

Perhaps my fascination with these characters stems from the ways they mirror the greatest story of all: Jesus, King of kings, giving up the privileges of Heaven to live as a man from a poor family, raised in an obscure village as a carpenter’s son, with the scandal of his mother’s premarital pregnancy hanging over his head.

In the narrative of John 13, which we will commemorate on Thursday, Jesus knowing the Father had given him authority over everything washed his disciples’ feet, usually the task of a slave. And then he challenged his disciples to serve as he had served them.

Knowing we are beloved by the Father, we are called to care as he cared. I love this quote from Mother Teresa: “If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”

After asking “Do you understand what I was doing?” Jesus told his disciples, “Slaves are not greater than their master.” What our master was willing to do for us is so much greater than anything we can ever do. Let’s not let pride get in the way of whatever our Lord asks of us. May the Spirit daily grow his love in us.

Miracles

But Jesus’ good works foreshadow the greatest miracle of all Lenten question #12

John 10:30-42 [Jesus said] “The Father and I are one.” Once again the people picked up stones to kill him. Jesus said, “At my Father’s direction I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone me? … Why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’? … If I do the Father’s work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.” … And many who were there believed in Jesus.

Have you experienced miracles in your life? I have. I wrote about several of them in Karis: All I See Is Grace. And there are many others. God is constantly at work in our world and in our lives.

But all the miracles we have heard about in Scripture or in other people’s lives or experienced ourselves pale before the greatest miracle of all, which we will celebrate in just a few days: the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. This is the great historical pivot when death was swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54), when HOPE became possible, when the joy at the center of the universe broke through despair. We sorrow, yes. But we know that our griefs are not the end of the story. We live in a comedy, not a tragedy.

First, though, we’ll walk with Jesus through the multilayered injustices of slander, rejection, mocking, shame, abuse, cruelty, abandonment by those closest to him, and the horrible suffering of death by crucifixion. We’ll hear Jesus say in the midst of all that, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

And because Jesus walked that road, we know there is nothing we experience which he cannot relate to. “He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

May the Lord give each of us deeper insight these next days into these mysteries of grace and love.

Choose your own adventure

But Jesus heals our vision Lenten question from John #11

John 9:32-38[The formerly blind man told the Jewish leaders] “Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue. When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.” “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!” “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.

Hmm. Deflecting a legitimate perspective by using contempt. Where have we seen that before?

My seven-year-old grandson recently received from his uncle a set of “choose your own ending” stories. My husband spent an hour with him a few nights ago exploring all the possible conclusions to one set of scary circumstances before finding the one happy ending that could allow Caleb to sleep in peace.

Shutterstock: Sarayut Sridee

I’ve written before on this blog about John 9, one of the most carefully crafted, intriguing chapters in the whole Bible with its intricate word play on the concept of blindness and vision. Since John doesn’t tell us what happened next in the formerly blind man’s life, we can imagine a number of possible outcomes of his rejection by the Jewish leaders when he naively (it seems) spoke truth to power. His vision went far beyond his new experience of physical sight.

Did his parents continue to reject him, to preserve their status in the synagogue?
Did the newly sighted man join the disciples in following Jesus around the countryside? If so, what did this lead to? Successful integration in the church birthed at Pentecost? Martyrdom? A mission to some other country?
What skills other than begging and dormant abilities and passions did he develop?
Did he meet a wonderful woman to marry and create his own family?

Hey, you could start with John 9, invent a past and a future for this man based on historical research, give him relationships with intriguing events and people and write a novel! The theme to explore: What did it mean for a man blind from birth, assumed to be paying the consequence of his own sin (in the womb??) or his parents’ to respond affirmatively to Jesus’ question: Do you believe in the Son of Man?

And what does this question mean to you today, in your circumstances, with your history, your relationships, your fears and expectations for your future? John’s entire Gospel compels our response to this question. What adventure will you choose?