“Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:3). When a giant man with biceps the size of bowling balls manages to lift a car, we may be impressed but we might not be shocked. But when a tiny woman desperate to save her children manages to lift a car, we can't call that anything other than a miracle. It's not necessarily the case that the first example of an extremely big and strong man lifting a car isn't a miracle. That man trained for years to build up muscles and was probably also blessed with good genes that allowed him to push his body to an extreme that most of us can't hope to reach. It is a miracle that he was able to push himself to a point where he could lift a car. But maybe it's not as obvious of a miracle as the tiny woman who has no business believing that she could possibly lift a car but loves her children enough to temporarily ignore the laws of reality and save her children. This kind of miracle is much more in our face and harder to ignore. Like the man born blind in the verse quoted above, each of us has been given the gift of various disabilities, weaknesses, addictions, insecurities, and other difficult or debilitating mental, emotional, physical, or social difficulties. The reasons why we have been given these gifts are likely complex and varied, but one of those reasons is so that the works of God should be made manifest in us. Manifest means obvious, even flagrant. When God works miracles through us as His imperfect vessels, the fact that we are totally the wrong person for the job is the whole point. God wants to be caught in the act, and to do that, He has to rely on the small and the simple and the weak things of the Earth. If a brilliant and charismatic speaker delivers a stunningly eloquent address, we would not be surprised if several members of the audience are deeply moved. But if a painfully shy person stands at the podium and gives a talk in a quavering monotone, refusing to make eye contact, but nevertheless shares a sincere and heartfelt testimony that brings in the Spirit, such that there is hardly a dry eye in the congregation, then the works of God are truly manifest. If we can feel the Spirit so strongly from someone who is so obviously not suited to public speaking, then it is that much harder to deny the reality of God and His power to manifest Himself through imperfect vessels. We should never assume that if we are particularly weak and untalented in a certain area that it is because God has little use for us or that He never intended to use us for that particular purpose. In fact, we are almost guaranteed that whatever our weaknesses are, God has a plan to make His works manifest through those exact weaknesses. If we have been blessed with a short temper, then God is going to put us in situations where it would be a miracle for us not to totally lose it. And when we don't lose it, it will be a miracle. If we are afraid of everything, then God is going to put us in situations where we have to be the bravest person in the room, and that, too, will be an obvious miracle. It is no fun to have weaknesses and it is even worse where we get put in situations where that weakness is extremely up front and obvious, but, to paraphrase Ben Parker from Spider-Man, with great weakness comes a great responsibility to allow the Lord to manifest His works through our weakness.
