Who are you becoming? What in your life is shaping you in one direction or another? Do all things happen for a reason? Mark’s Gospel is a story of change, both of conversion and rejection, growth in holiness and increasing evil. Those who receive the gift of salvation have been regenerated is a momentary act of the Holy Spirit who gives new life to the spiritually dead (Jn. 3:3). But sanctification is the ongoing cooperative process of becoming more like Jesus Christ over time. Unlike the new birth, our growth in holiness is working out of what God worked in (Phil. 2:12-13). Sanctification for the Christian is a sure thing—Christ will complete the work he started—but a lot can happen in the meantime. The story of the healing the blind man, like that of deaf man and mute man (7:31-27), is unique to Mark and functions as an acted parable—a demonstration of spiritual growth. Jesus doesn’t heal us at once. The blind man and Peter, like us, see partially before fully.