It is, perhaps, one of the strangest if not most perplexing of Jesus' miracles.
The people of Bethsaida bring a blind man to Jesus for healing. And Jesus spits on his hands, rubs the man's eyes and then asks the man what he sees.
Now here's where the story gets weird. The blind man says that he sees people, but that they look like trees. In other words, he can see, but his vision isn't anywhere near a hundred percent.
What is going on?
Why wasn't Jesus able to heal the man fully the first time?
Hold onto that question for a second.
After the man reveals that he still can't see perfectly, Jesus could have asked him this: "Okay, but is it good enough?" And I'm sure the man would have said, "Yes, it's good enough." He can't see a hundred percent, but he can see something.
But that isn't what happens. Jesus doesn't ask him if it's good enough. He puts his hands on the man's eyes and heals him fully.
The mistake we are tempted to make in reading this story is in thinking that Jesus needed two tries to fully heal the man. Jesus can do anything. He didn't need two tries. He gave the man two tries to make a point.
Healing from God is never halfway. Healing from God is never less than perfect. What God offers us is full and complete perfection through Him. No one else could restore the man's vision. No one else could restore it completely. Only God can do what Jesus did for that man.
Never settle for anything less than perfection.
Never settle for less than what this world that God made for you is capable of giving you.
And yet we do settle, don't we? Over little things and big things. We think, like the blind man must have thought, that our only choices are blindness or cloudy vision, so we choose the lesser. We settle then for less.
The beautiful thing about God is that when we choose Him, we are never settling. We are always choosing the very best of creation. And we are acknowledging that that is what God wants for us.
This morning, with the Wetlands closed, I branched out to new places to take pictures. I stopped by an old historical mansion in Melbourne, called Green Gables. I had read about it and it was on my list of places to visit. I was happy to find parking right across the street from it. I was happy that I could take pictures of it without trespassing.
But when I got home and pulled up the pictures I had taken on my computer, I found I was disappointed with the pictures. Somehow I had not managed to capture the life that exists even in inanimate objects. I'm not used to taking pictures of old buildings and perhaps with practice, I'll get better, but today I was disappointed.
And I was disappointed with the pictures I took at another park on the way home, seagulls and domestic ducks and ibises. I just wasn't satisfied with anything.
So, I grabbed my camera and went back out. I stopped at one park but no birds, so I went to Hope, but the church grounds were silent. Finally, I stopped at the park across the street and hiked through the tall grass to watch two Great Egrets chasing each other, dancing on the water.
Yes, yes, I thought, this is the perfection I was looking for.
On the way back to the car, I caught a Cooper's Hawk in mid-flight and then caught sight of an American Kestrel sitting on top of a sign, pulling at what turned out to be a frog he had caught.
Back in the car, I took a deep breath. Now my day was complete.
The people of Bethsaida bring a blind man to Jesus for healing. And Jesus spits on his hands, rubs the man's eyes and then asks the man what he sees.
Now here's where the story gets weird. The blind man says that he sees people, but that they look like trees. In other words, he can see, but his vision isn't anywhere near a hundred percent.
What is going on?
Why wasn't Jesus able to heal the man fully the first time?
Hold onto that question for a second.
After the man reveals that he still can't see perfectly, Jesus could have asked him this: "Okay, but is it good enough?" And I'm sure the man would have said, "Yes, it's good enough." He can't see a hundred percent, but he can see something.
But that isn't what happens. Jesus doesn't ask him if it's good enough. He puts his hands on the man's eyes and heals him fully.
The mistake we are tempted to make in reading this story is in thinking that Jesus needed two tries to fully heal the man. Jesus can do anything. He didn't need two tries. He gave the man two tries to make a point.
Healing from God is never halfway. Healing from God is never less than perfect. What God offers us is full and complete perfection through Him. No one else could restore the man's vision. No one else could restore it completely. Only God can do what Jesus did for that man.
Never settle for anything less than perfection.
Never settle for less than what this world that God made for you is capable of giving you.
And yet we do settle, don't we? Over little things and big things. We think, like the blind man must have thought, that our only choices are blindness or cloudy vision, so we choose the lesser. We settle then for less.
The beautiful thing about God is that when we choose Him, we are never settling. We are always choosing the very best of creation. And we are acknowledging that that is what God wants for us.
This morning, with the Wetlands closed, I branched out to new places to take pictures. I stopped by an old historical mansion in Melbourne, called Green Gables. I had read about it and it was on my list of places to visit. I was happy to find parking right across the street from it. I was happy that I could take pictures of it without trespassing.
But when I got home and pulled up the pictures I had taken on my computer, I found I was disappointed with the pictures. Somehow I had not managed to capture the life that exists even in inanimate objects. I'm not used to taking pictures of old buildings and perhaps with practice, I'll get better, but today I was disappointed.
And I was disappointed with the pictures I took at another park on the way home, seagulls and domestic ducks and ibises. I just wasn't satisfied with anything.
So, I grabbed my camera and went back out. I stopped at one park but no birds, so I went to Hope, but the church grounds were silent. Finally, I stopped at the park across the street and hiked through the tall grass to watch two Great Egrets chasing each other, dancing on the water.
Yes, yes, I thought, this is the perfection I was looking for.
On the way back to the car, I caught a Cooper's Hawk in mid-flight and then caught sight of an American Kestrel sitting on top of a sign, pulling at what turned out to be a frog he had caught.
Back in the car, I took a deep breath. Now my day was complete.
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