Fully Healed

The Gospels are filled with stories of miraculous healings. Jesus, revealing both his power and his compassion, relieves the suffering of his people by restoring what was broken. Each story of healing is powerful and teaches us something of God’s great love and mercy, giving insight into how he works. One of the stories that always grabs my attention is that of the healing of the blind man recounted in Mark’s gospel.

While preaching in the village of Bethsaida, Jesus is brought a blind man. The blind man’s friends beg Jesus to touch him and thereby heal him. Jesus responds to this great act of faith by taking the man by the hand and leading him outside the village. There he does as the people asked, he heals the blind man. But the way that Jesus does so is what is so striking to me, “Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on him and asked ‘Do you see anything?’ Looking up he replied, ‘I see people looking like trees and walking.’ Then he laid hands on his eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly.” (Mark 8: 22-27)

Jesus initial act of healing this man was miraculous. The blind man went from not being able to see to being able to see, and though his sight was imperfect, nevertheless a real healing had taken place. He was likely filled with gratitude and may have been satisfied, this sight, though indistinct was better than the state he had been in. To him it might have seemed like good enough. But, not so for Jesus. Jesus was not satisfied with leaving the blind man half-healed. Rather, he continued the work of healing he had begun, bringing it to perfection. Jesus did not have to heal in the is gradual manner; he had already healed others with a single word, a single touch. I believe he chose to heal in this way to instruct us, his followers.

We should always be grateful for the way that God works in our lives, healing, restoring, freeing us, but we do not have to be satisfied when we discover that the healing he has begun in our lives is not complete, not as deep or thorough as we had hoped or believed. We can take this passage from Mark as encouragement that Jesus is not satisfied with leaving us half-healed, he desires to continue to work in us.

I have seen this principle at work in my own life over the years. The Lord began a work of healing areas of insecurity, wounds, and lies twenty years ago in my college days. He brought people into my life to speak truth to me. I was not ready to receive well the words of love and affirmation that were spoken to me then, but seeds were planted. They could not yet take root, but nevertheless their planting mattered; they lay dormant, the beginning of work the God would continue over time.

A decade later the Lord began tilling up the soil of my heart. It was a painful work, one in which lies were uprooted and old wounds exposed. This work of tilling created good, rich, fertile soil for those seeds previously planted to finally take root in and begin to grow. That would have been enough for me, I was grateful and satisfied. But God wanted to do more.

Unbeknownst to me there were still weeds amongst the wheat, the good fruit planted in my heart. A few years ago the Lord allowed me to see those weeds, the work of the enemy who desired to strangle to death the beautiful garden God was growing within my soul. More uprooting had to happen, and once again the process was painful, but the results were well worth every bit of the pain: a clear field teeming with life, beauty, and goodness.

I was fully satisfied, but even then the Lord God, who loves so lavishly and desires not only our good but in fact our perfection, was not finished. In recent days he has returned to the work he began in my college days. He has placed people in my life to speak words of truth and of affirmation to me, speaking them now into a heart that has been made ready to receive them and thereby adding ever more good fruit to the harvest of my soul.

Like the healing of the blind man, the healing of my soul has been a gradual process, but one is which Jesus did not cease to work. If there are areas of your own life that a currently only half-healed take courage; our God is not finished with you.  He wants you to be fully healed, it may take time, but like Saint Paul, “I confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6)