To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

 

There’s nothing new under the sun, including selective memory – a malady that seems to affect far too many people.  Among the people who witnessed the healing of the beggar were probably a number of folks who had been around during Jesus’ ministry.  They were there when He healed the lame.  They saw Him raise the dead.  They ate some of the loaves and fishes when He fed 5,000 people from a little boy’s sack lunch and came up with baskets of leftovers.  They had seen the massive Temple veil torn in two from top to bottom.  They had felt the earthquake, and had witnessed the graves being opened, and the dead in Christ rising and walking around.  But that was a few weeks ago.  And they had slept since then.  So they were amazed when they saw the beggar’s legs made strong.

 

Those folks weren’t a whole lot different from Peter himself.  He had been with Jesus nearly from the beginning, and had seen one miracle after another, and yet, on the night before the crucifixion, Peter was the one who – three times - denied even knowing who Jesus was.

 

And we say, "How could Peter possibly doubt?  How could he deny Jesus?  How could the very people who witnessed all the miracles continue to be so amazed?"  Because Peter and all those people were just like you and me… they practiced selective memory.  The pattern is… problem arises, problem solved through a miracle from God, we are amazed and grateful, and then we forget.  And the pattern has to start over again.

 

God performs millions of miracles every day.  Some we’re aware of - like an out-of-control car that misses you by inches, or the person you "accidentally" run into that has just the word of encouragement you needed that day.  And some we never even know about, but that happen anyway.  Day after day, we see God working in our lives, delivering blessings heaped on blessings.  And then a major crisis occurs, and we’re devastated.  We hit rock bottom faster than we thought possible and are filled with hopelessness and despair, shaken to the very bottom of our souls.  The hundreds of miracles that have occurred over the past few months are blown right out of our minds, and all we can see is the hopelessness of our situations.  We, like Peter and all the others, are practicing selective memory.

 

The question is, how long will you continue to have selective memory?  How many miracles does Jesus have to perform before you will believe - and keep on believing - no matter what?  Think about it.