I need my friends
As we come to Jesus, we might expect the immediate healing of all our anxieties, hang-ups, and long-held issues. We know there are things in our lives Jesus forgives but then he "deals" with them for a while until we realize they are finally gone. The sinful stuff in our lives that gets our focused attention through God's eyes will get dealt with in pretty short order compared to the stuff we just let 'hang on' even when he is telling us to let it go.
Jesus and his followers came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch the man. So Jesus held the blind man’s hand and led him out of the village. Then he spit on the man’s eyes. He laid his hands on him and asked, “Can you see now?” The man looked up and said, “Yes, I see people. They look like trees walking around.” Again Jesus laid his hands on the man’s eyes, and the man opened them wide. His eyes were healed, and he was able to see everything clearly. (Mark 8:22-25)
We come to Jesus just as we are - complete with all our hang-ups and messiness - with no need to clean up before we say yes to him. We sometimes are with Jesus in our lives for a while with more than a few of these hang-ups and messy areas in our lives - not because he doesn't have the capability to immediately deal with them and remove them, but because there is something which happens in the continual washing over time. In those moments of seeking him time and again, we find there is a connection made much like the connection made when he led this blind man out of the village.
At first, we may not even realize how to get free from those things which have been "with us" for so long in our lives. This is where we need the faithfulness of friends who will walk with us to the place we come face-to-face with Jesus. This man might have known he was in the presence of Jesus, but he didn't yet see Jesus fully for who he was. The friends were the ones interceding for this man - it wasn't the man begging for his healing - it was the friends. We need each other - plain and simple. We may not recognize how much until we find our friends interceding for the mess our lives have become. Just sayin!
Jesus and his followers came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch the man. So Jesus held the blind man’s hand and led him out of the village. Then he spit on the man’s eyes. He laid his hands on him and asked, “Can you see now?” The man looked up and said, “Yes, I see people. They look like trees walking around.” Again Jesus laid his hands on the man’s eyes, and the man opened them wide. His eyes were healed, and he was able to see everything clearly. (Mark 8:22-25)
We come to Jesus just as we are - complete with all our hang-ups and messiness - with no need to clean up before we say yes to him. We sometimes are with Jesus in our lives for a while with more than a few of these hang-ups and messy areas in our lives - not because he doesn't have the capability to immediately deal with them and remove them, but because there is something which happens in the continual washing over time. In those moments of seeking him time and again, we find there is a connection made much like the connection made when he led this blind man out of the village.
At first, we may not even realize how to get free from those things which have been "with us" for so long in our lives. This is where we need the faithfulness of friends who will walk with us to the place we come face-to-face with Jesus. This man might have known he was in the presence of Jesus, but he didn't yet see Jesus fully for who he was. The friends were the ones interceding for this man - it wasn't the man begging for his healing - it was the friends. We need each other - plain and simple. We may not recognize how much until we find our friends interceding for the mess our lives have become. Just sayin!
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