by Joel Iyorwa
Joel has been ministering among students in his home country, Nigeria, for more than a decade. He studied psychology at the Benue State University, Nigeria, and has since been pursuing his heart given passion, mobilizing and discipling the emerging generation.
“And he comes to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man to him, and sought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again on his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly” (Mark 8:22-25)
Vision is not just the ability to see it is also what you see. It is one top quality God has always looked for in anyone who is going to serve Him. The Scriptures unequivocally maintain that “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” (Prov. 29:18, KJV). God does not give a Mission to someone who does not have a Vision and that is why many times in the scriptures God would ask his servants “what do you see?”
Vision determines the direction, action, values, ambitions, and the history, present and future of a man. Vision describes who a man is and what he is living for, it sums up correctly the essence of a life and the rationale behind the daily cumulative actions and activities of that life.
In this kind of weird passage in Mark’s gospel, we stumble upon two issues relating to vision that we are often caught struggling with even today. The first issue is Visionless-ness or a lack of vision, while the second is a wrong or a distorted vision.
In the state in which this man was brought to Jesus, he was blind (vs. 22). This is the worst condition we could ever find ourselves in as a people God is building in these end times. To be blind is to be unable to see, to have no vision at all. Such a person who has no spiritual vision is ‘useless’ both to God and to himself.
There are many people today who do not have a vision of what their lives are about and where they are heading to in life; they are just floating, tossed about and riding on the tidal waves of the modern age and the pressures of the push-and-pull factors of life. They are in college today because they want to be able to put food on the table and live a comfortable middle class life tomorrow. They are getting married just because it’s a normal part of life, nothing is driving them, and nothing is propelling them in the direction of life they have chosen for themselves.
This is a pathetic way to live; it is a state of spiritual blindness. This was the state this man was in when he was brought to Jesus – he was completely blind. The good news here is that “they brought him to Jesus, seeking him to touch him” (vs. 22). I wish all who are living a blind, visionless life today would also come to Jesus, I wish they would get so desperate in calling out to Jesus and make haste in running to Him like ‘Blind Bartimeaus’ in Luke 18:35-43
“And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging…And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. 38And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more…And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. And immediately he received his sight…”
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