On this fourth weekend of the new year, our first reading are taken from the first letter of St. Paul to Timothy which sets forth Paul’s belief that Christ, Who came into the world to save sinners, dealt with Paul mercifully so that we might know that He will deal mercifully with us.

Our reading from Luke’s Gospel retells the story of how Jesus cured a blind man near Jericho because the man loudly called to Jesus even though those around Jesus tried to quiet him. Jesus simply asked the man: “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied: “I want to see!” Jesus restored the man’s sight saying: “Receive your sight. Your faith has healed you.”

What message can we derive from these two readings? As I reflected upon them, these thoughts came to me.

So often we humans are blind to the workings of God in our lives. We frequently lack the faith to see that the challenges that life presents to us are uniquely designed to allow us the opportunity to grow in our faith. We fail to see God as a merciful and loving God and think that the difficult challenges in life are either punishments or tests of our faith. In truth the difficulties which all of us must face in life are not punishments or tests. They are opportunities to place our hope and trust in God.

Faith in God is the only thing that can help us understand the true meaning of life and come to see the love extended to us in these challenges. The truth of the matter is that we would never spiritually grow if we weren’t challenged by life. We humans seem to quickly “forget” about our loving God when everything in life is turning out exactly as we want.

Further, the story of the blind man tells us that we have to reach out to God to God for help. The help we must seek, however, is to understand what life’s challenges are attempting to teach us. For some reason when we ask God for help, we desire that He give us what we want and not, necessarily, what we need to grow in our faith and belief in Him.

We get distracted, I think, by the Gospel stories since Jesus usually grants to the people who seek His help, what they want. There are no stories where He refuses to grant what others request. So we grow to think that if we ask He will grant us what we want. He only grants us what is good for us and what we need.