Open the Eyes of the Blind Lord OR Is it Time to Spit on the Ground???

My friend wrote to me today

I am rejoicing in a successful cataract surgery and new lens implant. Thank you Lord! How bright and beautiful the world looks!

Cataracts

A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of your eye. Cataracts can make your vision blurry, hazy, or less colorful

nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health

How a cataract forms
A cataract is a cloudy lens. The lens is positioned behind the colored part of your eye (iris). The lens focuses light that passes into your eye, producing clear, sharp images on the retina — the light-sensitive membrane in the eye that functions like the film in a camera.
As you age, the lenses in your eyes become less flexible, less transparent and thicker. Age-related and other medical conditions cause proteins and fibers within the lenses to break down and clump together, clouding the lenses.
As the cataract continues to develop, the clouding becomes denser. A cataract scatters and blocks the light as it passes through the lens, preventing a sharply defined image from reaching your retina. As a result, your vision becomes blurred. mayoclinic.org/diseases

I have been concerned about the increasing spiritual and emotional blindness during these past months. As stated below metaphoric blindness is a dulled spiritual perception.

When a person is physically blind all they can see is darkness, no light, and they need to be lead by a dog, a stick or another person. They depend on someone else to inform them about many things in their life as they see only darkness. Simplified I know but you get my point!

When a person is said to be metaphorically blind, their intellect has been dulled, as Mr Vine tells us below.

[ A-1,Verb,G5186, tuphloo ]
to blind” (from a root tuph—, “to burn, smoke;” cp. tuphos, “smoke”), is used metaphorically, of the dulling of the intellect, John 12:40; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 2:11.

[ A-2,Verb,G4456, poroo ]
signifies “to harden” (from poros, “a thick skin, a hardening”); rendered “blinded,” AV, in Romans 11:7; 2 Corinthians 3:14 (RV, “hardened”); cp. 2 Corinthians 4:4. See HARDEN.

[ B-1,Adjective,G5185, tuphlos ]
“blind,” is used both physically and metaphorically, chiefly in the Gospels; elsewhere four times; physically, Acts 13:11; metaphorically, Romans 2:19; 2 Peter 1:9; Revelation 3:17. The word is frequently used as a noun, signifying “a blind man.”

[ C-1,Noun,G4457, porosis ]
akin to A. No. 2, primarily means “a covering with a callus,” a “hardening,” Romans 11:25; Ephesians 4:18, RV, for AV, “blindness;” Mark 3:5, RV, for AV, “hardness.” It is metaphorical of a dulled spiritual perception. See HARDNESS.

studybible.info/vines/Blind,Blindness

Has our vision become:

cloudy?
blurry
hazy
less sharply defined images
or less colorful

Has your reasoning and logical lens become:

less flexible,
less transparent
thicker
or blurred

God is into opening the eyes of the blind !

The Bible says much about being blind, and blindness both physically and metaphorically. God is into opening the eyes of the blind, see references below. One of the most well know stories is found in the Bible, where a whole chapter in the book of John is devoted to telling this very thought provoking story. John 9.

The Blind Man’s Story

The story starts when Jesus notices a blind beggar and wants to teach his disciples something extremely important, when they inquire why this man is blind. Firstly Jesus explains that

As long as I am with you, My life is the light that pierces the world’s darkness John 9:5

Then Jesus does a very radical “one off” !!!

Jesus spat on the ground and made some clay with His saliva. He rubbed this mud on the blind man’s eyes and told him to go and wash in a pool at Siloam. The blind man with mud in his eyes washed his face in the pool and could see for the first time in his life. The darkness was gone and now everyone was asking ” what has happened to you?”, “where is this man who spat in your eye? John 9;6-12.

Instead of a marvelous celebration, the people around, especially the religious leaders, now started to get legalistic, unbelieving, argumentative and “twisted out of shape”. These leaders then began intimidating the man and his parents, putting him on the spot, demanding answers about who had healed him, over and over again. They heaped insults on him, but the guy who was healed refused to budge on what he had experienced and now knew was the truth. John 9:13-28

The parents feeling manipulated and intimated replied ” ask him, he’s a mature adult, He can speak for himself”

This formerly blind man was so surprised with the attitudes of these leaders, so he challenged them back saying

Well what a surprise is this! You don’t even know where this man comes from , but he healed my eyes and now I can see! We know that God does not listen to sinners, but only to goldly people who do His will. yet who has heard of a man born blind that was healed and given his eyesight for the very first time. I tell you if this man wasn’t from God, he wouldn’t be able to heal me like He has!

The enraged leaders threw him out in the street, refusing to listen to the voice of truth. They shouted, who are you to lecture us? you were born blind, a filthy sinner.

Jesus found him in the street and reveled Himself to the man, whose spiritual eyes were opened to the truth.

The mingling of spit and clay is such a beautiful picture of Jesus who is God and man. No doubt the man had been spat on as a sign of disgust, as the people believed he was cursed. However this day when he heard Jesus spit on the ground, it was for his healing, physical, spiritual and emotional. God had touched the man of clay and opened his eyes to the truth.

Jesus continued to explain His truth to the man……

I have come to judge those who think they can see, and make them blind. And for those who are blind, I have come to make them see.

As Jesus challenged them again, the leaders recognized themselves as the judged ones, , saying “You mean to tell us that we are the blind? “blind guides of the blind?”

Jesus replied

If you would acknowledge your blindness, then your sin would be removed. But now that you claim to see, your sin remains with you…

Time to allow Jesus to spit on the ground and cleanse our own sight???

We all have our blind spots but maybe it is time to acknowledge our blindness. Time to allow Jesus to spit on the ground and cleanse our own sight….. physically, spiritually, emotionally.