Was Blind But Now I See by Thursa
I just got back from my Wednesday night bible study and was excited about something God revealed to me and just wanted to share it. It’s wonderful how God is so great and just links everything together. As I have mentioned before, we are studying the book of Mark, and tonight was chapter 8. I have learned many wonderful things through this study, but again, God spoke directly to me in regards to a link to restoration. The passage in Mark I am referring to is when Jesus healed the blind man:
The Healing of a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.
23 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?”
24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
25 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.
26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t go into the village.”
I have briefly shared with Linda that I went totally blind for a period of time when I was younger. I believe the total blindness lasted about 2 weeks and was due to a disease I had called Intracranial Hypertension. The wonderful thing is that God blessed me tremendously by healing my blindness and giving me 20% of my eyesight back. Now this may not sound like much, and is still considered “legally” blind, but you would not believe what I am capable of doing; I am so blessed. Most people that find this out about me believe it must be incorrect, because they would never see me as blind. I am truly blessed in that the vision I lost does not really affect my daily life in any noticeable way. With that being said, although I had studied this passage earlier this week, as we read it tonight, God spoke to me specifically about how Jesus asked the man “Do you see anything?” It appears that the man saw something, but he didn’t see everything, and therefore wasn’t “completely” healed. So then Jesus gave the man further healing and his vision was then clear. HE WAS RESTORED!!! Well, from the period of time that I was totally blind, to where I have the vision I have today, I too began to see little bits of things. But I was unable to handle that. My brain had gone into a defense mode, as the doctors described it, and began putting images that it remembered in my mind so that I thought I saw certain things, which were actually images from my past. And it was those images combined with the images I was really starting to see that totally confused me. It really was a very hard time, because I was overwhelmed with confusion and didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t real. But slowly, my mind adjusted more and more to the “real” images and I did not dwell on the past images. My brain could now handle what my eyes were really seeing, so I was healed to the point I am now.
Ok, lots of talk, how does this apply? Woo-hoo, it’s cool and here it comes.
God began to show me that as in the case of the blind man, he wasn’t truly ready for complete healing; it had to come a little at a time. It came, and he linked it to what he knew, trees. He had obviously had vision at some point and knew what a tree was. Perhaps it was the trees that guided the man the entire time through his blindness. It was what he knew. So he linked the familiar past to what he was beginning to experience. Hmmm, isn’t this the same concept of how we and our spouses begin to heal in our hearts, yet link things to the past and struggle with making the connection between what was the past and the good we see in the healing??? We struggle with unforgiveness of the past and the healing of restoration. Just as in my case, when my eyesight was being restored; it’s an overload and our brains aren’t sure if we can really handle it; if it’s a mind game or if it’s real. Satan uses this and speaks to us and our spouses, and tries to play the same mind game with us; making us link the healing to what was familiar in the past. Satan reminds us of the past; he tries to get us to be unforgiving and dwell on the past. He doesn’t want to see our one flesh hearts healed and united together for God’s glory. But Jesus is there, revealing our total restoration a little bit at a time. He’s healing us bits at a time so that we aren’t confused and fall back into the past. We must choose to be led by Jesus with faith, just like this blind man was. We must know that the healing WILL COME and our vision (marriages) WILL BE RESTORED!!!
So just keep your eyes on Jesus. Don’t listen to Satan and allow him to talk you into linking everything and sliding back into the past; what you were comfortable with. There is so much more God has in store for each of us. God wants our complete restoration; that is His COMPLETE vision! So stand strong. Jesus is leading us and He will NOT LET US GO. Move forward, taking Him by the hand and just keep on keepin’ on =)
Have a blessed day in His glory!!!
Thursa, this is such an awesome message! And what great insight the Lord has blessed you with! Based on my experience in marriage restoration ministry, I have seen this played out over and over again, because it’s So hard to put the past in the past. But when the Lord tells us to let our spouses go when they want to leave, that means letting the past go too, because he’s going to do a NEW thing for us when He restores our marriages. So not forgetting the past would be like trying to put new wine into old wine skins, and Matthew 9:17 warns Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine skins, and both are preserved.” Yes indeed, we need to forget the past and look forward to the wonderful futures God has planned for us, just as we’re told in Philippians 3:1214, which says it best:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Thursa, this is exactly what I was talking to Bob about on Sunday; letting the past go and looking at the future. He is stuck on things he didn’t like in the past and satan keeps bringing those to his mind and I told him to remember the other 25 good times instead of the one bad one. This really touched my heart, so thanks for the insight. Keep encouraged and continue blessing others, and God will be faithful to complete what He has begun. I also believe that we are being healed a bit at a time. And God knows the perfect time when it will be complete. When we look, we think we are ready, but only God knows that time. So thanks for remining us that we are all being healed a little at a time and we need to keep our hearts open for God to work and refine us and our spouses. Keep on keepin’ on. Diane
Thursa,
This is such a powerful message. I could really relate to it and it helped me a lot. God bless!