When The First Touch Isn’t Final

||Rhema for the Week||

“After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.” — Mark 8:25

The preceding verse tells how Jesus prayed for a blind man’s healing, and the result wasn’t immediate. After the prayer, the blind man saw “men as trees walking.” Strange! So, Jesus prayed again, and then his sight was fully restored. This miracle suggests and reminds the believer that “not everything may work perfectly on the first attempt, even when God is involved.”

Interestingly, the expression, “I’m proud of you,” appears to have often been reserved for first-time winners. This orientation likely makes us interpret seasons of delays and partial progress as signs of disqualification. Yet, the scripture, “The righteous may fall seven times and still rise…” teaches us to rethink our first-attempt interpretations and suggests to us that, “instead of weakness, rising in itself is righteousness.”

Therefore, as soldiers of Christ, a first attempt that produces an otherwise result does not make us less of soldiers in God’s army. Rather, the bruises or scars from a first attempt are a reminder that:
1) we have been to war, and
2) we have been healed from a wound.
After all, is there any mature soldier in God’s army without a scar?

Are you facing something that didn’t work on the first attempt? Don’t retreat! Pray again! Knock again! Look up to Jesus again! As Paul affirms, “we are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, struck down but not destroyed.” Like the blind man, your blurry beginning is not your final chapter. Stay in the process; healing, clarity, and full restoration may come in the next touch.

Further Reading: Mark 8:22–25, Proverbs 24:16, Galatians 6:9, 2 Corinthians 4:8–9, Philippians 1:6, and Luke 18:1–8