Customized Healing

When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes. (John 9:6)

What was going through this man's thoughts and emotions on his way to the pool? Whatever it was I strongly suspect that it resonated with the attitudes and disposition that had been growing inside of him, ripening for this very moment when he would encounter Jesus in his own fullness of time.

What were others saying to him on the way to the pool? Remember, he couldn't see anything and now his eyes additionally had mud plastered all over them which made his blindness even more obvious to anyone looking at him. Some may have laughed, some jeered after asking why his face was so dirty, some may have even scolded him and tried to discourage him from believing in such 'magic'. But deep inside the heart of this blind man was stirring a hope that he would not allow anyone to steal from him and whatever the obstacles or no matter how long it took, he was going to press through to the pool and do what Jesus had asked him to do in hope that the impossible would actually become a reality.

I can imagine the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he hurried faster than maybe what was safe for a blind man toward a pool of water. How far away was the pool? We don't know, but it was far enough away that he became separated from Jesus and didn't reconnect with him until Jesus looked him up some time later to encourage him. It is difficult to grasp or appreciate the emotional perspective of a person born blind, never having seen anything in their whole life and relying on others to describe things that have no internal point of reference about things outside the grasp of the other senses. Suddenly a man comes along who not only challenges accepted paradigms about God and how He feels about you in a most radical way, but offers to bring about a healing miracle of God for you that has never been heard of from the beginning of history. Talk about stretching the belief envelope, this man was being asked to act on an offer that had been assumed by everyone in the world to be absolutely impossible and out of the question. How would he respond?

On his way to the pool did he begin to wonder about the 'what ifs'? Or did he dismiss them firmly in favor of choosing to believe in the impossible? Maybe he had spent all of his previous years sorting through all the 'what ifs' and was finished with them. Maybe his heart had already been questioning the prevailing assumptions about God and how God felt about people like him and he was ready to part ways with the mainstream beliefs of those around him. Based on his ensuing testimony that is as radical as his healing, it seems to me that this man was not your typical conformist and was finished with being trapped in a victim mentality. He was already thinking outside the box and was not afraid to stand up openly to the religious assumptions and intimidations that were so effective in keeping everyone else firmly under the control of the established system.

But why did Jesus use such a unique way of healing this man that was so different than how he healed other blind people or even other maladies for that matter? Usually Jesus touched people or just spoke a word of healing into their lives. However, there is a very interesting story of Jesus custom healing a blind man in Mark 8:22-26 that has similarities to this one and also with very interesting differences. It might be instructive to compare these two stories to see what might be learned from looking at them in parallel.

What seems to emerge for me is that Jesus related to each person in such as way as to bring about the greatest resonance with the condition of their own heart. Many people He healed instantly, some He challenged to expose some level of unbelief before they were healed and some He never even attempted to heal because of their level of unbelief. But in instances like these two, it is fascinating to see how Jesus customized His approach to them to not only relate uniquely to them as a person but also to create a vital spiritual lesson for others to observe.

Why did Jesus sometimes involve a person and solicit their 'assistance' in their healing process while many others He apparently did all the work Himself? I don't have a complete answer for that but I think it is an excellent question to raise as a means of learning more about God. If this man had insisted that Jesus heal him with a Word instead of leaving Jesus to wash the mess off his face and hope for something strange and spectacular to happen to him, he would likely have not had the same outcome – or maybe something else would have transpired. But like Naaman in the Old Testament, taking an alternative route to healing would likely not have been a good idea. When God makes an offer with unique conditions for us to participate, it is very likely that these conditions will be tailor designed to address our unique perspective and possibly some deep issues that we need to face in order to bring about a more complete effect in the healing God desires for us.

It is so easy to get hung up on a formula, to try to figure out the details of how God relates to people and think that if we can just get the same details to all line up that the same results might happen for us. But this kind of thinking is really along the lines of magic, and it also fails to take into account that God relates to the heart primarily, and because each person's heart is different then God's way of relating to that person may take on a different form externally. And while there may be similarities between the way God relates to different people with similar problems it is not a given that He is going to relate to everyone in that same way.

God's heart and primary desire toward us is that we be healed and be drawn into a trusting, responding, loving relationship with Him – that is His ultimate purpose and goal. He is eager to sweep away all the obstacles in our hearts and minds that block us from fully trusting Him – and there are many. But because love can only exist in total freedom of our will, He must wait until we are ready to let go of our false ideas about Him, our unfounded fears, our misconceptions that keep us mired in unbelief. But when we are ready on any point to move another step closer to His heart He will be there showing us how to cooperate with Him through our own experience of customized healing.

My healing may look rather strange to someone else and may break the paradigms we have about what healing should look like. Or maybe my healing might look like a rubber stamp of someone else's experience, but from my perspective it will still be uniquely designed to meet the distinct longing of my own soul. Jesus put clay made from dust mingled with His own spit on this man's eyes. The other blind man mentioned above had Jesus spitting right on his eyes and then Jesus' hands placed on them. Even then the initial results were almost bizarre – seeing men looking like trees walking around. (I've always wondered how this blind man knew what trees looked like to start with if he had never seen them before.) Did Jesus fumble this healing? Did He make an 'oops' and have to try again? Or was something else much deeper going on here that addressed some hidden issues in this man's heart as well as providing a pointed lesson for the Jews who also had confused notions about reality?

The good news in both of these stories is that these men were once blind but now they could see wonderfully clear. And clearly in both of these instances Jesus intended to make a spiritual point about the blindness that all of us need to be healed from. I know I want that healing and I crave it deeply. Sometimes I get glimpses of what I think is intense light and begin to see things so different in the other reality that I long to just jump into that realm of living and leave this world behind. But Jesus is customizing my healing journey and asks me to participate in some way with my own healing as He draws me closer to His heart and teaches me His ways.

Jesus, please keep healing me.