Your Weakness Doesn't Make You Worthless

One of my favorite stories of the Bible is the story of blind Bartimaeus. In short, Jesus is walking through the town of Jericho, and everyone gets wind of it. Even a blind beggar named Bartimaeus.

Blind Bart leans into his other senses and recognizes that Jesus is passing by. I think one of the reasons I love this story is because Bart has grit. He begins to call out to Jesus for pity. The people around him try to get him to be quiet, but he seems not to care what they think because he keeps calling out for Jesus.

Lesson #1: You have one life, take your chance when opportunity presents itself. If people are going to be critical during the process, then who cares if you fail and they’re critical afterwards.

Jesus hears the shouts from Bart, and says to the crowd, “Call him Over!” The people then change their tune and gleefully tell Bart that Jesus wants to see him.

Lesson #2: Don’t let the Criticism or the Cheers be your motivator. People are fickle and are up and down as fast as a light switch.

Bartimaeus was focused, knew what he wanted, wouldn’t let others dictate how he lived his life, took his chance, and kept one very important thing in mind: He didn’t think he was worthless just because he had a weakness.

This man could have sulked in his inability to see. Bart could have played a negative narrative over and over In his head till he believed all the stuff others said to him. Yet, the actions he takes tell us that he isn’t reading or writing a negative script for his life.

Bart knew he couldn’t see, but that didn’t lead him to think he shouldn’t see.

He believed for the best, came to Jesus, and answered the question of “What do you want?,” with: Vision.

Healed by the healer.

It was never in question whether Jesus had the power to heal him; but I do wonder how many other people were standing by Bart wanting healing but chose to allow their weakness to keep them waiting?

I don’t know your weakness. It may be obvious to you and hidden to others, or hidden to you and obvious to others. The latter calls for introspection; the former, courage.

The courage to face it, fight it, and to have the faith that it can change.

Bottom line is this: we all have weaknesses. It doesn’t rule you out. What’s great is that God already knows them. He has the power to help us through them, but in the meantime you have to be like Blind Bartimaeus and recognize that you are not limited forever just because of your current limitation. Stand up, shout, and run towards the one who has the power to heal, even if every step is a momentary unknown.