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Podcast Notes:

When we look at Jesus’ brief three year ministry, He not only did some miraculous things, but He also gave some very practical advice.

Hi my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast, I want to discuss one piece of advice that Jesus gave and a miracle, that proved itself.

In both instances, it took nearly 2,000 years to fully understand what Jesus said and did. 

Jesus Advice on Worry

First let’s talk about the practical advice that Jesus gave. 

One of the major themes of Christ’s teaching was worry. He told us that we need to trust God.

But the Lord also gave some practical advice stating in Matthew 6:34, “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.”

What in the world did Jesus mean when He said tomorrow will take care of itself?

Well it took nearly 2,000 years, but researchers from Penn State may have uncovered it?

A few years back they studied 29 people who suffered from a serious anxiety disorder. 

These were not amateurs when it came to worry, they were top-level worriers. For a full month these professional worriers were told to write down everything that they worried about.

Once these lists were compiled, over the next few months the researchers followed up to find out what actually happened with those things they were worrying about. 

There were some remarkable findings. First, they found out that 91% of the things the people worried about didn’t come to pass. This means that they were worrying about problems that didn’t actually exist. We have all heard of “fake-news” well these were “fake-worries.”

There were even a few cases where 100% of the things that people worried about didn’t actually take place.

Then they looked at the 9% of the worries that had “some” legitimacy, and notice how I said “some,” because the researchers discovered that most of them were overblown. The worry exceeded the reality of the situation.

Other worry studies came to a similar conclusion. One determined that 85% of the things that people worried about were fake. And for the remaining 15% that came to pass, 79% were significantly over exaggerated.

So when Jesus said let tomorrow take care of itself, the Lord was simply saying that most of the stuff we worry about is fake and time will simply take care of it.

That Strange Miracle

Oddly it also took about 2,000 years to sort out one of Christ’s oddest healing. It was so strange, that some Christians actually call it a failed healing. Others have even gone the ridiculous step of stating that Christ needed more faith to complete the healing.

But before we look at that crazy story, let’s hit the fast forward button and skip ahead about 2,000 years. 

Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, Shirl Jennings had been blind since he was 10.

However, in 1991 at the insistence of his girlfriend, Barbara, Shirl saw an eye specialist, Dr. Trevor Woodhams. Since Shirl could still see light, Woodhams didn’t think Shirl had this affliction.

In fact, Shirl had thick cataracts and their removal resulted in a return of Shirl’s eyesight, just before his marriage to Barbara.

For the first time in 40 years, Shirl could see, but there was a problem.

In his article for The New Yorker¹, former Columbia University professor, Dr. Oliver Sacks, cited Barbara’s journal who wrote:

“[Shirl] often felt more disabled than he had felt when he was blind… Steps posed a special hazard because all he could see was a confusion, a flat surface of parallel and crisscrossing lines; he could not see them (although he knew them) as solid objects going up or coming down in three-dimensional place.”

The cat was also challenging. Though Shirl identified the cat’s head, tail and paws, he could not visualize the cat as a single entity.

The images were coming in correctly, but Shirl’s mind was not processing them. It took weeks, before Shirl could see properly.

Barbara said trees were also problematic. Shirl recognized their individual parts, trunk, leaves and branches, but they were just a jumbled mess.

This reminds us of Jesus’ strange healing of a blind man at Bethsaida. After spitting on the man’s eyes and laying hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around” (Mark 8:23-24).

Just like Shirl, all the images were merged together and people looked like walking trees. So Jesus laid hands on the man again, and he saw clearly. 

Now because of modern science, we know this confusion happens to people who are seeing for the first time.

But back in the first century, they had no way of knowing this.

The fact this blind man saw men walking as trees was proof that Jesus healed him.

While many consider this to be a failed healing, all Jesus did the second time was help the man’s mind sort out what he was already seeing. 

But equally important I believe God intended this healing for people living today, because only with modern medical practices can we make sense of of this miracle.

Christ’s advice on worry and the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida is God’s way of showing us that the Bible is as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.

Thanks for joining me on this podcast, and I will catch you again. 

1. Note: In his article for The New Yorker, Dr. Sacks, now deceased, used pseudonyms for all involved. Credit: Oliver Sacks, “TO SEE AND NOT SEE“, The New Yorker, June 12, 2006:  ↩︎

Sources:

• Most things you worry about will never actually happen:
• How worrying affects the body: WebMD
• Exposing Worry’s Deceit: Percentage of Untrue Worries in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Treatment: Science Direct
• The worry cure by Robert L Heahy
• 85 Percent of What We Worry About Never Happens: Huff Post