John 5:9-11 (NIVUK)
…The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’
11 But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.”’
Our worldview, the way we take the world as being and how it works, is a powerful thing. It helps us make sense of what’s going on around us, and helps make communities work. They’re not always helpful, though, they can prevent us from seeing things because they don’t fit with what we expect or how we think things should work. This story is a great example. The Jewish leaders’ have a worldview based on their faith and traditions that helped them to worship and organise their followers. I’m sure that most of the time it was a positive thing, but here, they are so focussed on this person carrying his mat that they fail to take in the extraordinary fact that he’s been healed! We all have worldviews, we need them, but it is important to understand they are incomplete and imperfect. This calls for humility. Sometimes we need God’s gracious intervention to enable us to see beyond them to see how things really are.
Father, help me to build a worldview based upon you, the humility to accept I may get it wrong, and when needed, the help to see beyond it.
Image used with permission by John Paul Stanley
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