Study and Meditations on this Sunday's Scripture Readings: April 3, 2011

[Fidelis]

I am just trying to relate to how God chose David to how he chose others like Saul the persecutor. If he indeed chooses/chose David on basis of the heart, then what can be said about him choosing Saul the persecutor?

That is a good question. My thought is that Saul/Paul was also chosen by God on the basis of his heart. Saul, in his way, was seeking God. However God had to break him out of his wrong-headed ways of going about it, and purify his motives. This he did, in a dramatic unusual way, on the Damascus road. After this, Paul’s heart was free to love God in a way in God’s way.

 

[Fidelis]

In most of the other cases, the sick person approached/called Jesus and asked him for a favour – healing. He often first tested for faith before granting the request.

But in this case, Jesus made the first move and healed the blind man without him asking.
What can we learn from this? That we must not always ask? If such a lesson could be drawn from this passage, then it might be contradictory to other passages in Scripture where we are taught to “ask”.

I don’t think so. God always takes the initiative. Even when we ask, it is only us cooperating with the grace God has given us to ask.

Also, God gives us (and even those who don’t believe in him) many things without asking-- shelter, health, food, even life itself. All these things are gifts from God. But God, for his own reasons-- does still want us to ask. If nothing else, it cultivates in us a sense of healthy gratitude to God.