And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way. – Mark 10:52 KJV
This is just one excerpt from one of the accounts of where Jesus heals a blind man. There are many such accounts as we can see in: Matthew 9:27-31; 12:22; 20:30-34; Mark 10:46-52; John 9:1-7.
For this article I would like to take a different approach when looking at these miracles. I would like to look at the “what’s next” side of things.
We never think about what happened after He opened their eyes. Yes, it says they followed Jesus in the way [The Christian way of life], but let’s look a little deeper into this. Before they had sight some of them were beggars as the Bible explains. Some do not mention what they did to survive, but I believe it fair to assume they were limited with how they could function in the world.
After gaining sight for the first time ever, they had the real challenge of starting a new life. We have this perception that after receiving sight everything went on happily ever… I think, things were never harder for these guys. Let’s face it, they had the life of a beggar, Which I know is tough, but they were not doing much and basically just waited around for hand outs.
Then suddenly everything changes. Suddenly they are no longer helpless in this world. Think about it… Grown men suddenly able help themselves, and not dependent on the world. Their lives up and till now was “easy” and now they have to learn how to work and fully function in the world for the first time. With all they great things that come with having sight, came a lot of responsibility and hardship.
We are in the same situation today. Once we were blind and now for the first time we start seeing the word for what it is. We have to figure out what Jesus meant when He said that we should not be like the world around us (John 15:19). So we need to figure out how to live the new life in Christ, but then we have this extreme pull to go back to the blind life, the worldly life. We do this the moment things get a little bit hard, we try to find reasons why the world is not so bad.
We need to realize that no matter how hard we try, the old ways will never fulfill us the way it used to, because now we know better. We now have the responsibility and opportunity to live life the Jesus way. Things will be hard at times and this is perfectly fine, but we need to push through and realize what we have now is better and will last forever. What we have now is the true life, not blinded by the world. Living our lives eternally focused.
For this article I would like to take a different approach when looking at these miracles. I would like to look at the “what’s next” side of things.
We never think about what happened after He opened their eyes. Yes, it says they followed Jesus in the way [The Christian way of life], but let’s look a little deeper into this. Before they had sight some of them were beggars as the Bible explains. Some do not mention what they did to survive, but I believe it fair to assume they were limited with how they could function in the world.
After gaining sight for the first time ever, they had the real challenge of starting a new life. We have this perception that after receiving sight everything went on happily ever… I think, things were never harder for these guys. Let’s face it, they had the life of a beggar, Which I know is tough, but they were not doing much and basically just waited around for hand outs.
Then suddenly everything changes. Suddenly they are no longer helpless in this world. Think about it… Grown men suddenly able help themselves, and not dependent on the world. Their lives up and till now was “easy” and now they have to learn how to work and fully function in the world for the first time. With all they great things that come with having sight, came a lot of responsibility and hardship.
We are in the same situation today. Once we were blind and now for the first time we start seeing the word for what it is. We have to figure out what Jesus meant when He said that we should not be like the world around us (John 15:19). So we need to figure out how to live the new life in Christ, but then we have this extreme pull to go back to the blind life, the worldly life. We do this the moment things get a little bit hard, we try to find reasons why the world is not so bad.
We need to realize that no matter how hard we try, the old ways will never fulfill us the way it used to, because now we know better. We now have the responsibility and opportunity to live life the Jesus way. Things will be hard at times and this is perfectly fine, but we need to push through and realize what we have now is better and will last forever. What we have now is the true life, not blinded by the world. Living our lives eternally focused.