American evangelist Billy Graham does not fully understand why God allows people to suffer physical disabilities. He says though that it's wrong to assume that He did that to punish people.
Even Jesus Christ disproved that notion when He still lived among people. "On one occasion Jesus and his followers came upon a man who had been blind since birth," Graham writes in his column for The Kansas City Star. "His disciples asked Jesus why it had happened. Was it because the man himself had sinned, they asked, or because his parents had sinned?"
Behind their question, according to Graham, was a belief that was very common during those days—if a person was disabled, then it means that God was punishing them for some grave sin. As backwards as that opinion might be, there are still some people who think that way today.
"But Jesus told them they were wrong. Obviously the man himself wasn't being punished for any sin he had committed. He was blind at birth. But neither, Jesus said, had it happened because of anything his parents had done," says Graham.
Jesus said that neither the blind man nor his parents have sin, but his blindness must have happened "so that the works of God might be displayed in him. And so, Jesus proceeded to heal the blind man."
At the same time, Graham says that people who care for the disabled are in a unique position "for God to display his love and his work through you."
Meanwhile, Graham writes in a separate article that Jesus did not come into this world to make people miserable and "squeeze all the joy out of life." Instead, what Jesus wants is to make people feel fulfilled through God. "Life's greatest joy comes from knowing Christ and following Him," says Graham.
