During Herod the Great's time, the Roman Phaedrus noted that, "the only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane." Well... maybe... I know that I've seen too much of some things and more than enough of some others...but it seems to me that our main problem is not seeing enough, or clearly enough. People have distorted views of themselves, their neighbors, and the meaning of life. Everything seems to be out of focus, but even that is barely noticeable... because nobody's looking at anything anyway. Charles Kuralt once said,"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it's now possible to drive from coast to coast without seeing anything."... and I will gladly add "amen." Indeed, thanks to our cell phones, it's now possible to walk for hours... and not see anything. I'm sure that, someday in the distant future, scientists will be perplexed... when they uncover the bones of a human species... that had exceptionally agile thumbs... and eyes that were especially adapted to very small images! Of course, there are already people who specialize in seeing small things, aren't there? Some of them are judgmental critics...who fixate on the speck in their neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in their own eye- the ones that Jesus mentioned, but others are simply myopic. They are blinded by detail, and they really can't see the forest for the trees. Years ago, when I was studying perception in a psychology class, I read about a reductionist movement, in which images were broken down into their most minute parts. Thus... a painting was seen as so many pigments of brown, so many pigments of blue, and so forth. Finally, the "Gestaltists" carried the day with the observation that the painting was not a collection of paint pigments and brush strokes... but rather, a picture of a horse in a field!
Some people can't see the big picture to save their lives, but others are blind to the details, paths, and connecting points that form the big picture. Some people with this form of blindness are merely dreamers and talkers, and they aren't seeing as much as they are wandering and dreaming. However, most of them suffer with presbyopia (and not just the Presbyterians)... which means that they just can't see what's right in front of their faces. They may see the city on the hill, but they're blind to the steps that take them there, and they certainly don't see the way things are interconnected. They are blind to the struggles and obstacles that others face, and they always risk unintended consequences. Once, when I was working as a counselor for the Iowa Commission for the Blind, I became convinced that one of my clients could do far more than keep bees, which was what he was doing, and I kept encouraging him to see bigger things. I was pushing him to see a bigger picture, but my boss called me to his office and told me to back off. He said that my client's wife had complained because, every time I left their home, her husband was depressed and dissatisfied with his life.
So, we have the myopics who don't see where the road is heading... and the presbyopics, who don't see the road. In the end, the blind lead the blind. In some ways then, we are a gathering of the blind, an assembly of myopics and presbyopics- which some of us have suspected all along. But there's a blindness that's much more serious than either myopia or presbyopia, and as you probably guessed, I'm referring to spiritual blindness. Spiritual blindness is caused by any number of things, most of which stem from pride or sin, but... regardless of the cause, if we are spiritually blind, we are severely handicapped because we'll never see the image of God in our neighbor... or in ourselves; or the future that God wants us to claim; or the work that God wants us to do; or the rainbows that accompany the storms in our lives; or just how much God wants to hold us, and forgive us. When we're spiritually blind, we're destined to stumble through life as lost souls- alone, disoriented, and unfulfilled- and when we're spiritually blind, we will never see just how much God loves us.
Some people who are spiritually blind can't see their need for God. They're doing fine in their own eyes, and as far as they can see, God wouldn't add much to their lives anyway. All that we can do for these people is pray... for there are none so blind as those who can't see that they can't see! If you know someone who has this form of spiritual blindness, pray...pray that God will do whatever He has to do... to open their eyes! Pray that they will have an awakening, "hit bottom," or be reborn. Pray that they will see their need for grace and forgiveness because seeing ourselves as sinners is the first step toward salvation. However, there are many people- legions of them- who know that they need God, but they don't know who he is. They know that they're blind, but they can't see their Savior. This presents a huge opportunity for us, and we can serve these people most effectively as pointers! We can, like John the Baptist, point Jesus out to them, and cry, "There is the Lamb of God." Like the Samaritan woman whom Jesus talked to at the well, we can run and tell our entire village what we have seen and heard, and like Phillip, who led the eunuch to Christ, we can show others how Scripture points to Jesus. If we have seen that Jesus is the Source of Living Water, we can point the way and we can point to the man!
Surely we can do these things. We can pray, and we can point... but there's one more thing: we can do: we can follow. Indeed, we must follow because that's what the Christian life is about. We must pray for those who cannot see, and we must point out Christ to those who want to see... but when Christ has opened our eyes, we must pick up our cross and follow him- to Galilee, to the ends of the earth, to the very gates of hell, and to wherever he leads us! In the end, following Jesus reveals that we have 20/20 vision. People who see... follow Christ. For Christians... it's just that simple!
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