When faced with a problem of some kind, we might ask, “Why did this happen to me? What have I done? Who or what is to blame? There must be a reason!”

In other words, we’re tempted to look for a cause for suffering, just as Jesus’ disciples sometimes were. In the Gospel of John, we read that on one occasion, when Jesus and his disciples saw a man who had been blind since birth, they asked him, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (9:1–7).

Jesus didn’t skirt the disciples’ question but reoriented it, turning their attention away from “who” and “why.” He knew of only one cause, the one omnipotent God, the only creator, and he told them that God’s good work—the perfection of His spiritual creation—would be manifested in the man. That’s all they needed to know. And then, demonstrating this, he healed the man of blindness.