2224 Spit, Mud & Miracles

Imagine being blind and receiving the life-changing miracle of sight from Jesus. This is a miracle Jesus offered the blind in scripture, and if it happened then, it can still happen now. He opens eyes, he restores vision, he enables us to see what we’ve never seen before. Every single one of us need that touch from Jesus.

What’s really interesting is the different ways Jesus heals the blind. Have you ever wondered why with some he simply spoke healing from a distance and they were healed, for others he touched them with his hand, and even others he healed in very unexpected ways. If you dig deeper into the ways Jesus healed, you will understand something more about him.

Jesus is personal – he meets us where we are and heals us individually. For the one who needs to be touched, he touches them. For the one who needs to hear him speak, he speaks. For the one far away, he sends the power of his word from a distance. For the one who would benefit from a more tangible method, Jesus uses something they can see, feel, and experience. He knows exactly what each person needs, and he is never limited to one way of doing things.

Jesus doesn’t fit in our little box. There are no rituals we can repeat. No 10 step plan to recreate. It’s ONLY JESUS – His way – and his way can be different for every one of us!

Once, Jesus encountered a man who had been blind his entire life. His eyes had never worked, they had never functioned, he had never seen anything. In John 9, we see Jesus spit on the ground, make mud with his own saliva, and spread that mud all over the blind man’s eyes. Then in verse 7 Jesus told him, “‘Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam’ (Siloam means ‘sent’). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!”

Here, Jesus uses mud on his eyes and has him take a step of faith before anything had changed for him. Still blind, now with a muddy face, this man had to go to a pool to wash. He had to walk out his healing. While he didn’t feel it, while he was still blind, he had to obey.

Imagine the faith that took! He had mud in his eyes, no sight to guide him, and nothing to prove that anything was happening. All he had was the word of Jesus.

And, sister, isn’t that where faith gets real? It’s easy to obey when you can already see the results. It’s easy to believe when the answer is obvious and the breakthrough is unfolding right in front of you. But what do you do when Jesus has given you an instruction and nothing has changed yet? What do you do when you’re still in the dark, still waiting, still wondering how this is ever going to work out?

You keep walking.

Yes, today, you keep walking. Walk in faith that Jesus sees you and has made a way for you. Walk in faith that he is personally working for you and he’s not going to leave you the way he found you. But you can’t just stand there and stay where you’ve been. You’re going to have to walk this out in obedience, trusting his miraculous power is at work even when nothing has changed yet.

You trust what He said, even when you can’t yet see what He’s doing. You take the next step, even when the circumstances haven’t changed. You stop demanding to see the miracle before you’re willing to move in obedience.

The man didn’t have to understand how Jesus would heal him. He just had to trust Jesus enough to go wash. And when he came back, everything had changed.

If you keep reading in the story, you find the Pharisees are deeply disturbed by this miracle and they begin questioning the healed man. “Who did this? How did he do it?” He didn’t know who Jesus was – he didn’t know his power – he didn’t understand how it had happened – he just knew this man named Jesus made mud with his spit, rubbed that mud on his eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool – and when he did, for the first time ever he was given sight.

The Pharisees wanted to argue about it. Funny how such a miracle was received with such drama instead of celebration. (Lord, please forgive us – we’re still doing that toda