But they went out and spread word of him through all the land. // Matthew 9:31
The pink plastic frames slightly pinched behind my ears. I wriggled my nose, trying to get used to the new feeling of having glasses. I looked at my mom, and she looked down at me. She didn’t look too different. In fact, most of what I saw in the doctor’s office looked about the same, except now I could read the posters on the far side of the room. I was appreciative of the improvement, but it wasn’t until I was outside that I was amazed.
The trees were totally different. The leaves no longer looked like clumps of green; now there were thousands of individual little leaves with hundreds of thousands of little dips and rounds and points creating their edges. And the grass! The grass was not a solid carpet of green, but millions of little green blades, dotted with three leaf clovers and small white flowers. My seven-year-old self stood in wild wonder at all the intricacies I had missed because of my poor eyesight.
So I chuckle at Jesus telling the formerly blind men, “See that no one knows about this” (Matthew 9:30). How could they?! Were they to pretend they were still blind? Were they to lie to their loved ones? Were they to save every gasp and startle inside their hearts as they hid the wild wonder they must have felt at all the intricacies they had missed?
The Church Fathers suggest that Jesus asked them to not share about their healing because He did not want worldly fame, but for all glory to be pointed to God. I’ve met so many Christians whose lives are different because of their relationship with Christ. That difference cannot be ignored or overlooked, and so word of Him spreads throughout the land. What difference is your relationship with Jesus making in your life? What would you want it to make?