In the previous post, Are You Willing To Do Whatever It Takes For Your Healing? Part 1, we saw how in Mark 7:24-30, the Gentile Syrophoenician woman did whatever it took to obtain healing for her daughter who was demon possessed. Immediately after this account in verses 31-37, Mark describes the healing of a man who was deaf and suffered from a speech impediment. What is intriguing is the manner in which Jesus heals this individual. “Jesus, taking him aside by himself, away from the crowd, put His fingers into the man’s ears, and after spitting, He touched the man’s tongue [with the saliva]” (Mark 7:34 AMP).
I don’t know about you, but if I’m being completely truthful, even the idea of someone spitting and then placing their spit on my tongue makes me uncomfortable – both pre- and post-COVID! Can you just put yourself into this man’s shoes and imagine his situation? Mark 7:32 ESV says, “And they brought to him [Jesus] a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him” (emphasis mine). Here he was with his friends and they’d finally made it to see Jesus. The level of their faith was high, and their expectation was that if Jesus would just lay His hand on him, he’d be healed. Jesus took him off privately (the man might have delighted that he was getting the VIP, special treatment). As he watched in awe and wonder, full of hope and excitement, Jesus first stuck his fingers into his ears, then He spat and placed His saliva onto his tongue.
Um, what just happened? He and everyone with him must have been taken aback. In our current culture, you can just imagine hearing the gasps from people saying, “Did He just do what I think He did?” Yet, there was no recorded protest from the man, only full deference to Jesus along with what must have been hunger and thirst after a move of God. Certainly, what Jesus did must have been unexpected, but the man set aside all expectations about the method and simply focused his heart on the outcome.
We would never consider going into the doctor’s office and dictating our method of treatment. Yet, we oftentimes miss opportunities to be healed because we don’t like what God requires of us. We inadvertently tell Him what we will or will not do through our distrust and noncompliance. Unfortunately, fear and the desire for control often limit us from being willing to trust God to do things His way rather than ours. Doing whatever it takes to be healed means surrendering control and following the instructions of the LORD just as we would a medical specialist. Jesus is, after all, the Great Physician. Trust Him.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV)