NOTES for Mar 7:31-37

The people who brought the deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus did not merely ask Him for healing; they also specified how it should take place. They “begged Him to lay His hand on him,” that is, to bless the sick man in the presence of the whole crowd. Jesus, however, takes the deaf-mute man aside to a secluded place where, alone with His disciples, He performs a series of physical actions quite unlike the customary blessing: He puts His fingers into the man's ears and touches his tongue with saliva...

How often in our lives, when asking the Lord for something, we expect Him to act in ways that are clear and obvious to us. But He works His miracles neither according to our plan nor in a way that we necessarily see, just as the friends of the man with the speech impediment did not see the miracle. Yet neither this healing nor God's other works lose any of their power because of that.