Obstructions! Have you ever sat in a theater behind someone who was too tall? Or had to watch a ball game from behind a big pole? Or see what the crowd was excitedly observing, but you couldn’t move to get a better view? Obstructions come in all shapes and sizes and get in your way.
While traveling in Italy a few years ago we were near a mountain top villa we wanted to visit, so we pulled off the highway and headed toward this villa. It could be seen for miles around as it stood on this rocky outcropping. But just when we would turn onto the road that would lead us there, there were police blocking our way. We thought there must be an accident, so they were diverting traffic. So we pulled up and asked. “Il Papa” was their reply. Now Italian is not our strong suit, so we were puzzled for a couple of minutes. Then it hit us, the Pope was at the villa, and they were protecting him.
When moving in any direction, whether we like it or not, we will face obstacles. If we want anything important, challenge is part of the process. Things will get in the way. If it were easy, everyone would achieve the goal. The best goals are the hardest to achieve. I will let just about anyone wash my car, but I won’t allow just anyone to remove my appendix. And to become a surgeon takes years of training and experience, all of which are obstacles to me becoming a surgeon so I can do my own operation.
There was a blind may sitting by the road when Jesus was leaving the town. Blindness is a pretty large obstacle to many things in life. This man might have had to have someone lead him to the place to sit each day. He relied on the kindness of strangers for his most basic needs. Every task in life would be more difficult.
But what you don’t expect is for people to try to stand in your way. You don’t expect people to trip up a blind person. That is cruel. And yet that is what some were doing just that. They were trying to keep the man from getting to Jesus. He shouts hoping to get Jesus’ attention, but they want him to shut up.
Luckily Jesus hears the man and stops. He wants to remove the obstacles from this man’s life. He want to give him access. Jesus gives the man an open door.
I picture the crowd parting, creating a aisle between where he was and Jesus, a large obstacle removed. And the man takes those steps. The man might well have heard what Jesus said and did in this city, and he believes Jesus can restore his sight. And Jesus does.
What obstacles are obscuring your vision of what Jesus wants to do in and through you? What stands between you and God’s goal?
The Arnold Journey 