Joel Littlefield

Have you ever asked God to take you from misery to light; from pain to healing and then after some time everything looks a little gray to you? A little blurry and painful still? We know God heals. We’ve heard the stories. We have looked into the pages of the Bible and by faith have witnessed dead men rising, crippled walking, and blind coming to see the light of day. In each of these miraculous cases the story is a little different. Some ask, some beg, some run, but every time it is the Lord who commands both the process and the outcome.

There is one particular story of Jesus and a blind man in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 8:22-25

“They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

What in the world?

If you are like most people and most people are, then you could do without the spitting. We want nice clean fixes and no messes. We come to God with problems and expect solutions. But look at the end result. The man was healed of His blindness wasn’t he? The crowd who brought him to Jesus made a request for a healing touch, not a healing spit in the eye. So why?

Like the man in this story we are all in need. We may not be physically blind but we certainly do not always see clearly. We all have hurts, struggles; some physical and some spiritual. Going to Jesus is the right thing to do. Asking for help is good. Truly only Jesus has the power to give us what we need. This man was desperate. He knew his need was great and therefore he had no bones to pick with the Lord over His preferred method of healin. Spit and all, you see no complaints. How often do we complain when our request for help is not met with neat and orderly solutions?

Now the blurry trees.

On top of the fact that Jesus spit on this man it also seems it did not do the job completely. The trees represent nothing more than all the half-way points in our lives. Half healed. Half better. Half ready. Families half loving each other and half in turmoil. Churches only half as big as we’ve prayed for them to be. Marriages that were on the fritz – are getting better but something’s not quite right still. In these moments, do we run from Jesus or do we stick around for the additional touch the Lord is ready to give?

While most humans desire immediateness of action, we must understand that God doesn’t. God has placed us in the midst of a plan that He has made. While you may think your current situation is incomplete, only half-way better, God is looking at the very same situation and sees His perfect plan. He says “What do you see?” Do you see what He sees? He brought you there and has something for you. He will touch your life again if you stick around to see Him work. The stages to completeness in life’s circumstances are often a bit messy. Kind of like spit in the eye. But if we know it is the Lord we will have no argument with His methods. Only faith, looking ahead to all He has promised to complete.