In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man in a pretty unconventional manner.
He doesn’t make a big speech.
He doesn’t replace the man’s eyes.
He doesn’t wave a wand.
He kneels in the dirt, spits on the ground, and mixes mud with his saliva.
“Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.” (John 9:6-7, ESV).
The idea of mud caked on this blind man’s eyes has captured me for a long time. When I first came across it, I went deep into the story and examined it from a spiritual, cultural, and historical perspective.
Some scholars say this moment in John 9 echoes God’s creativity within the Garden, where He formed man from dust. Many years later, Jesus is giving this blind man a new life. Other commentaries dig into the idea that Jesus used this miracle to show his divine power in an age of mysticism and ancient healers. Saliva was often believed to have healing properties, but mixing it with dirt may have been Jesus’ way of showing his power and authority over all-natural elements.
There’s so much to unpack, but for right now, I want to stick to the surface of this story. Let’s see what is waiting for us right in front of our eyes.
In a nutshell:
The mud, placed onto the blind man’s eyes, gave the man a new sight.
Other words for sight:
A new perspective.
A new reality.
A new vision.
All from the healing touch of Jesus and a bit of mud.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent much of my life trying to avoid the mud pits. I like smooth transitions, victories without the battle, and praise reports but not the dark spaces they often emerge from. Yet here is a different, harder-to-embrace kind of truth: the mud gives us a new way of seeing things.
The mud grows us.
The mud transforms us.
The mud puts new songs in our mouths.
That last truth comes straight from Psalm 40.
David declares,
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Psalm 40:2-3
From the mud comes new songs.
New levels of God’s mercy and goodness come from the things in our faith we want to avoid. From the messiest spaces come the most significant visions.
Recently, I’ve come to understand that faith is not just an idea but a posture. It’s about how we choose to perceive our circumstances and how we believe God is working within those circumstances. Faith has the power to transform our perspective, even in the midst of life’s uncontrollable hardships.
There’s so much in this lifetime we don’t get to control. We can’t control the hard parts. Grief still comes in waves. Wounds reopen when we’re least expecting them. And the traumas we face are very real. We have a whole laundry list of imperfect, hard circumstances we don’t get to tweak or edit.
But we can change our perspective and our way of seeing things. And we can ask God to help us see our struggles in a fresh new light.
We can praise in the dark. We can accept the mud forging a new song in our souls– a ballad that, like David’s, will one day help others walking the same broken road, looking to see God in their mud pit.
It’s not surprising to me that many of my closest people—the ones who get me the most—have also had their own dark times and mud pits. We have that in common. When you face the dark—and you fight your way through it—the way you look at things starts to change. How you see others going through their own trials also begins to change.
Maybe that’s you. If you’re going through the mud today, take heart, friend. You’re not alone. I’ve been where you’re standing before. I’ve been trying to figure out where to move next. And in that mud pit, my vision changed forever.
I know the timing feels hard, and I know the whole experience is rather uncomfortable. But rich and real songs often take longer to forge in our souls.
Hold on a little longer. A new song is taking shape, even though you don’t know all the notes yet. Something is happening beneath the surface. That anthem is webbing deep in your soul. It’s processing as you walk through this mud pit. Just hold tight. You’re going to sing again soon.
If you need a prayer during this muddy season, borrow mine:
Dear God,
I’m stuck in the mud right now. I don’t know the way through. Sometimes I feel like I’m sinking, but I know you’re in it– I choose to believe you are in this with me.
Can you give me a new song, even though I’ve run out of words?
Give my heart a new anthem.
Give me a ballad of praise where you’re front and center.
You are the God who rescues me from the mud pit and sets my feet on steady ground.
Please give me a new way of seeing you in the mud.
Amen.
