This story is told of a blind student named John. One day, Bill, his lecturer asked John how he had become blind. The sightless student described an accident that had happened in his teenage years. The tragedy took not just the boy’s sight but also his hope. He told Bill, “I was bitter and angry with God for letting it happen, and I took my anger out on everyone around me. I felt that since I had no future, I wouldn’t lift a finger on my own behalf. Let others wait on me. I shut my bedroom door and refused to come out except for meals.”
His admission surprised Bill. The student he taught displayed no bitterness or anger. He asked John to explain the change. John credited his father. Weary of the pity party and ready for his son to get on with life, he reminded the boy of the impending winter and told him to mount the storm windows. “Do the work before I get home or else…!” the dad insisted, slamming the door on the way out.
John reacted with anger. Muttering and cursing and groping all the way to the garage, he found the windows, step ladder and tools and went to work. “They’ll be sorry when I fall off my ladder and break my neck.” But he didn’t fall. Little by little he inched around the house and finished the chore.
The assignment achieved the dad’s goal. John reluctantly realised he could still work and began to reconstruct his life. Years later he learned something else about that day. When he shared this detail with Bill, his blind eyes misted. “I later discovered that at no time during the day had my father ever been more than four or five feet from my side.”
The father had no intention of letting the boy fall.
You Father has no intention of letting you fall either. You can’t see Him, but He is there.
(excerpt from Come Thirsty by Max Lucado)
