Mark 8:22-26 Walking Trees
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: February 15, 2018, Mark 8:22-26
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
(Understanding the Text) The first thought I have is that there were people who loved this blind man because they were begging Jesus to heal him. The second thought I have is that the blind man could not see Jesus, but he heard his friends asking that Jesus touch him, so his expectations were to be touched. At that moment, his faith in Jesus was partly based on his friends’ belief in Jesus’ touch. Jesus leads him out of the village. Of course, I’m sure that this is partly to avoid having more crowds, but I wonder if it was also to work with the blind man’s own faith rather than the faith of his friends. There were still people around walking because the blind man says this. I wonder why Jesus told the blind man not to go back into the village. Maybe the blind man was from another place, and there was no reason for him to go back into the village and stir them up with his new sight.
They were at Bethsaida. They had just crossed the Sea of Galilee again after the refusal of the Pharisees to believe and the conversation on the water when they did not have enough food. They had been in a town near Magdala on the west side of the Sea. Now, they were on the north side of the sea in Bethsaida. After this, they would leave the Sea for a while and walk around from village to village.
I always wonder why Jesus performed different miracles in different ways. I believe that it was partly because He had to work with the faith of the people who received the healing. Their faith was based on their expectations, so he worked with their expectations. The blind man could not see and was used to strange hands touching him, so he may have needed to feel more than a hand on his face to believe in his healing. Jesus may have spit on his eyes in order to have him realize that more was going on than simply a stranger touching him. This man must not have been born blind because he knew what trees looked like. Maybe Jesus spit in order to touch the part of his eye that was blocking his sight. When Jesus laid his hands on the man again, maybe he was simply wiping away the gross stuff that had come off the man’s eyes at the healing.
(Revelation of God) It always confused me that Jesus did not completely heal this man from the first, that it was a 2-step process whereas other healings were complete from the first, but maybe the explanation was that stuff came off this man’s eyes as they healed and simply needed to be wiped away so that he could see clearly. In other words, the healing was complete from the first, but the cleaning was necessary in order for the man to know that he was completely healed. Part of my justification for this idea is the fact that something like scales fell from Paul’s eyes when he was healed.
(Application) I think we are like this situation a lot. For some of us, we are healed completely when Jesus comes into our lives, but we are surrounded by so much crud that we cannot clearly see that we are now whole, so God has to work with us, cleaning us up so that we can see that we are healed. Then, we can see clearly and not just in part.
(Revelation of God) An off-topic thought: When Jesus was on land, we read a lot about Him going off by Himself in nature to pray a lot. I wonder if that need was filled in the boat when He was out on the Sea crossing back and forth. Surrounded by the Sea and sky with birds flying overhead, did He feel close to His Father. Did this allow Him to commune in peace with His Father? I know that He spent some of this time in sleep, but I wonder if it was also His time of prayer.
(Prayer) Please take all the crud away from my life so that I can have a close relationship with You without anything dirtying up our connection. Thank you for faithful friends who love enough to bring others to You for healing. Help me to be that kind of friend.