What were you born with that you have wished all of your life was

not a part of who you are? We all have insecurities and

personality quirks, things we don't like about ourselves.

And for Barbara Rainey, it was her shyness.

You may never see the reason why God did this in your life this side

of heaven. You may never experience traumatic healing like the man

born blind, but you can know without question that God did not

make a mistake in your life. Today we'll find out how

we can have that kind of confidence because of Jesus.

Welcome to the Barbara Raney Podcast from Ever Thine Home,

dedicated to helping you experience God in your home.

Thanks for listening.

In this three episode season of the Barbara Rainey Podcast, we're

about to listen to a message that she gave a few years back during

a women's retreat at the COVID near Asheville, North Carolina.

You know, everyone has longings. Everyone is thirsty.

God designed us to find our ultimate satisfaction in Him.

The problem, of course, is that we search for satisfaction in

things other than Him. In this message,

Barbara helps us see that He, God, Father, Son,

and Spirit is enough. Let's listen to part one.

Here's Barbara Raney.

How many of you have read the Chronicles of Narnia to your children

or you've read it yourself? Most of you, but not everybody.

Okay, this is going to be fun because some of you are going to hear

hear one of my favorite authors and something that he's written that I think

is just as good for adults as it is for kids.

So I brought my My lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe book and I'm going

to read us a little story this morning. Everybody loves to

be read to you, right? So this is the story

of four children who found their way into another land through the back of a

wardrobe. And they were there. And here's what happened in

chapter seven. Shh, look, said

Susan. What? Said Peter. There's something moving among

the trees over there to the left. They all stared as

hard as they could, and no one felt very comfortable.

There it goes again, Susan said presently. I saw it that

time, too, said Peter. It's still there, just behind that big tree.

What is it? Asked Lucy, trying very hard not to sound

nervous. She was the youngest.

They all saw it this time, a whiskered furry face which had looked

out at them from behind the tree. But this time it didn't draw

back immediately. Instead, the animal put its paw

against his mouth, just as humans put their finger on their lips when they're

signaling you to be Quiet. Then it disappeared again.

The children all stood holding their breath.

A moment later, the stranger came out from behind the tree and glanced around as

if it were afraid someone was watching. Hush, he said.

I know what it is, said Peter. It's a beaver. I saw the tail.

It wants us to go with him, said Susan. It's warning us not

to make a noise. I know, said Peter. So the children

got close together and walked up to the tree. And there, sure enough, they

found the beaver. The beaver said to them,

are you the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve? It

said were some of them, said Peter. Shh, said the

beaver. Not so loud. We're not safe even here.

Why? What are you afraid of? Said Peter. There's no one here but

ourselves. There are the trees, said the beaver.

They're always listening. Then it signaled to

the children to stand as close as they possibly could so that their faces

were actually tickled by his whiskers.

They say Aslan is on the move, he said. Perhaps

he has already landed. And now a very curious thing

happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more

than you do. But the moment the beaver had spoken these

words, everyone felt quite different.

Shh, said Mr. Beaver. Not here. I must bring you where we can have a

real talk. And also some dinner. So the children

followed Mr. Beaver to his little home built out of sticks. They

crawled in the home, and Mrs. Beaver was there cooking dinner. And they

sat down and they all had dinner and they talked. And after

dinner was over, they said together, yes?

Please tell us about Aslan, several said at once. For once again, that

strange feeling, like the first signs of spring and like good news had

come over them. Who is Aslan? Said Susan.

Aslan? Said Mr. Beaver. Why, you don't know? He's

the king, he's the Lord. He's the lord of the whole wood. But he's not

often here, you understand. Never in my time or in my father's time.

But word has reached us that he will come back. He is in

Narnia, and he will make everything right.

But shall we see him? Asked Susan. Why, daughter of Eve. That's

exactly why I brought you here. I'm to lead you to him, said

Mr. Beaver. Is he a man? Asked Lucy asked.

Man. A man? Said Mr. Beaver sternly.

Certainly not. I tell you, he is the king of the Wood.

And the son of the great Emperor beyond the Sea.

Don't you know who is the king of the beasts? Aslan is a lion.

The lion? A great lion.

Oh, said Susan. I Thought he was a man. Is he

safe? Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about

meeting a lion. That you will, dearie. Make no mistake,

then he isn't safe, said lucy. Safe, said Mr. Beaver.

Don't you hear what we said to you? Who said anything about

safe? Of course he isn't safe. But

he's good, I tell you. He is the king. He is the

king. So we're going to talk about this God of

ours who is good. He is very good.

But he isn't always safe.

And all my life I've wanted a safe God. I don't know about you, but

I wanted a safe God that I could understand, a God I

could figure out, a God I could kind of put a

formula to or some kind of system of rules to. So I knew how he

worked, so it made sense to me. And I've learned the truth

of Mr. Beaver's words, that our God is very good, but he

is also not always safe. But I have

learned that he is enough for my past and for my present

and for my future. So this morning we're going to look at three different

scripture verses about God the Father,

one about God the Son, and about God the Holy Spirit, the

Trinity. And we're going to look at who they really are. And we

want to. I'm hoping that as we do this, we will be humbled

before their majesty and we will be led to worship.

First, we're going to talk about God the Son, and that he is enough

for your past. God the Son is enough for your

past. And we're going to look at a passage in the Book of John. But

before we do that, I want to tell you that there's a context to this

passage. In fact, there's a context to all of the ones we're going to read,

because all of Scripture is written in the context of other things that

are happening. And there are two things of context that I want you to be

aware of as we read it. The first one is the word believe.

There are 84 uses of the word believe in the Book of John.

That's a lot of repetitions of one word. Jesus

uses the word believe over and over again as a line in the sand,

asking everyone in various ways, who do you

believe that I am? There's no middle ground with

Jesus on belief. Either we believe or we

don't believe. We're in unbelief.

And in the context of our lives, where we find ourselves today, Jesus

is still asking us today, who do you believe that I

am? Interestingly I looked up the word believe,

and in the Greek, it's. It's a feminine verb. And

I find it fascinating. I'm still hoping I can get to do some study on

this more someday. But English doesn't have masculine and

feminine assignments to all of our words. Our words are

just what they are. But there are a lot of languages that have masculine and

feminine verbs, masculine and feminine adjectives and

adverbs and nouns. Spanish does, Greek does,

French does. A lot of them do so in Greek, the word believe is a

feminine noun. It means a conviction of truth. It means believing

in God, in divine things, with the idea of

trusting and having holy fervor. And it

reminds me of the story of the woman, the women who went to the tomb

on Sunday morning. I think the women had a greater

capacity to believe, and I think that's a part of the reason why the

word believe is a feminine noun. Because I think we do.

I think that's why Eve believed the serpent. I think we have

a greater capacity to believe. Now, nobody has told me this,

who's a great theologian. But as I've looked at the way we're

wired, the way we operate, one of the greatest gifts my

husband says I've ever given to him is that I believe in him. And I've

always believed in him. I believe in my children. And that

belief empowers and fuels and strengthens those that

we love. And I think that the women who went to the tomb,

their faith in who Jesus was, was rewarded when they saw him

first. I think Jesus honored and recognized their faith.

They're quick to believe in him. Faith when they went to the tomb.

So the word of. The word belief is a part of the context

of, of the story in John. And then secondly, this

story is in John, chapter nine. So if you've got your Bibles, you can turn

there now. But the timing of this story is really interesting.

It's the halfway point of Jesus ministry. Two

months earlier, Jesus had just been in Jerusalem and he had celebrated

the feast of Tabernacles. And at the feast of Tabernacles, he had

claimed to be the light of the world, which created a ruckus

among the Pharisees. But he had stood up and said, I am the

light of the world. Well, this story in John chapter nine is

happening in the month of December. And then

this month is the feast of lights. The feast, the festival of lights.

And it's. We call it Hanukkah, or we know it as Hanukkah.

So we're going to look at the story of John, chapter nine real quickly.

Verse one says, and as he passed by, he saw a

man blind from birth. I want to talk for a

couple of minutes about this man who was blind from birth. First of

all, Jesus saw this man. The man didn't see him because he was blind.

He couldn't see. But Jesus saw this man, saw his

need, saw his heart, recognized who he was. And he

knew, because he was fully God, that this man had been blind from

birth. He knew that he needed help. Now think

about this man in his life growing up. If he was born without

sight, how did he function in the world?

He had to have help for everything. So from the time he was born, he

was dependent on people for everything. For his food, for

his clothing, for his sustenance, for everything.

This man was needy. When we look at the passage, we think

he was probably of age, which meant he was probably 30 because he was

allowed to go into the temple. He was grown. And I thought

about how did he feel as a kid growing up, or how did he feel

as a teenager or even as a young man? And I would

imagine he felt left out. My guess is there were times he

was rejected. I think there were probably times he was made fun

of. There were probably times when he was not allowed among

the community of believers, because in those days, anyone who had something

wrong with them was unclean and they were cast out.

And I'm wondering if he was trying to get well, did he have

hope anymore that he would get well? I

don't know, but he'd always been this way. So I think it's

entirely possible that he had no hope of ever being

healed. I wonder if he had lost his

initiative. So in this story, just in verse one,

we see that this man did not take the initiative, but Jesus took

the initiative to reach to him, which is what he has done

in all of our lives. We love because he first loved us.

Jesus loved this man, and he reached out to him,

verse 2. And his disciples asked him, saying, rabbi,

who sinned this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?

And I just love this because this is so who we are. The disciples

wanted to know, not, are you going to heal him? Not what

are you thinking about this man? They wanted to know whose fault it was.

Why did they want to know whose fault it was? Because they

wanted to avoid a similar fate. And I think it's an issue

of control, quite frankly. They didn't trust

God. We don't trust God because we think we can manage this. We think

we can control the circumstances if we just figure out what's really

going on below the surface. And then

verse three, Jesus answered and said it was neither that this man sinned

nor his parents, but it was in order that the works of

God might be displayed in him. He didn't rebuke them for

asking the question, he let them ask the question

and he turned it and showed them what the truth was. And the truth

was, is that God wanted his glory to be seen.

He wanted those who were there to watch Jesus power

and who he really was. There's a verse that I

think is really interesting, Exodus 4:11. And the

verse says this God said to Moses, who

made man's mouth or who makes him dumb or deaf

or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord

who was behind this man's blindness? It wasn't the parents

fault, wasn't the man's fault. It

was God who had his glory in mind. It was God who

wanted to do something to demonstrate who he was to

to people. God intentionally made this man blind.

That kind of sits wrong with us, doesn't it? Because we think of our God

as a good God and he is a good God, but this is where he's

not always safe. God intentionally made

this man blind. He intentionally subjected him to

decades of life with a handicap, a disability,

and the man suffered for it. We don't like that

kind of God, do we? But the reason

he did it, Jesus makes it really clear in verse three. Because God had a

higher purpose in mind to display his glory.

And as I thought about it, I thought if the man had been born whole,

he would have never experienced the wonder of being healed.

He wouldn't have appreciated it. But he lived with this

blindness for so long that when Jesus healed him, he was

exuberant. If you read the rest of the chapter, he couldn't stop talking about

it. He was jumping up and running around and telling everyone what had

happened to him. And we would too, right? The man knew he was

blind and he understood his need for healing. Now

I want to turn this to us. What

handicap were you born with that has never left you

since birth? My handicap was not anything

physical that could be seen or measured like blindness or deafness.

My handicap, I always felt like, was that I

was shy and I was insecure and I was quiet and I

didn't. I wasn't comfortable with people. And I remember

going through high school and noticing people who were really

popular and they had fun and they talked easily. And I

remember thinking, why can't I be more like those people? Why can't I

be like those friends of mine that I knew that I'd probably been

in elementary school with? Why can't I be like that?

And I tried to be different, and I couldn't break out of my shell.

And it followed me all of my life. And I always

felt like if I didn't have this, if I wasn't made this

way, if I wasn't made to be cautious and quiet and

think things through, if I could be more like these other people, I would be

happier, I would have more fun. People would like me.

I could be popular. I remember one day,

years later, I was married, I had kids, and I was still

struggling with this and feeling insecure, and I just didn't like

the way I was. And I was driving somewhere and I just had this thought

out of the blue, which of course was God himself, the Holy Spirit.

And he reminded me that it was important for me to

be that way. He said, you don't know what you escape. You

don't know what you were saved from because you were not a part of that

group of kids that you long to be a part of. And I went,

yes, Lord, you are right.

I shared this story with a group of women about a month and a half

ago at a retreat. And one of the ones in the group

is we all shared. It was a much, much smaller retreat, and we all shared

what our handicap was. And one woman said, I

always felt like the odd person in my family because

everybody else in my family, all my other siblings were just like my parents,

and I was so different from anyone else. I always felt like

the odd one out. I felt like I was a mistake my whole life.

And it was a really powerful time of sharing what we have

felt trapped by our entire lives. So I want you to

think for a second. What were you born with that you have wished

all of your life was not a part of who you are? Write

that down on your notes if you know what it is.

You may never see the reason why God did this in your life this side

of heaven, you may never experience dramatic healing like the man

born blind, but you can know without question that God did not

make a mistake in your life. You can know he meant it for your

good and he meant it for his glory that the works

of God might be displayed in you. The story of a

man born blind finishes with Jesus going and finding this man and asking

him, do you believe? Do you believe in

the Son of Man and the blind man who was now

seeing said, yes, I believe, and he fell on his face and he

worshiped Jesus. So my question for you and

for me Will you be like the blind man who recognized his

need, who believed God intended good for him?

Or will you be like the disciples who wanted control?

It takes faith to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, is

enough for your past, and to believe that God knows what he's

doing as he wisely allows even the difficult things in

our lives. That's Barbara Rainey from a message she gave at a

retreat for women a few years ago. I hope

you'll take a moment to browse through the articles, resources

and podcast episodes on Barbara's Substack page.

She wrote an epic poem that covers the entire Bible.

It's called the Wonder of the Word, and you can check out

more information about it on Substack. Just go to

barbarainey.substack.com

in this episode, Barbara showed us why God the Son is

enough for our past. Next up, we'll hear part two of

Barbara's message. She'll explain what she means by her statement,

God the Father is enough for our present. I'm

Michelle. Thanks for listening today. Join us again on the next

episode of the Barbara Rainey Podcast. From Ever Thine Home,

Sam.