By Chris WittsFriday 5 Aug 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
One of the most valuable parts of our body is our eyes. What amazing organs they are allowing us to see what’s going on, and we take our eyes for granted. That is, until something goes wrong. We need to see a specialist. I can still remember how upset I was in my forties having to get reading glasses. My eyesight was starting to change, but I wasn’t ready.
Millions of people need to get their eyes checked. Blurry, unclear. Unfocused vision. That’s the most common eyesight problem. It’s usually nothing really to worry about.
Blurriness could just be a sign that your glasses or your contact prescription needs updating. Every once in a while, though, fuzzy vision signals something that’s more serious, so vision is important. Crisp and clear vision. It’s a great blessing, but if your vision is blurred or bad, you’ll probably feel like I did – disheartened. Try to always investigate what’s causing your blurry vision. But do you know there’s something in this topic of ‘a blurred vision’, and that is that all of us have spiritual nearsightedness to one degree or another.
Spiritual blurriness
I’m talking about the blurring of our spiritual life. Life with blurry vision, as I’ve said, is dangerous. The way we see God directly affects our behaviour towards Him and towards His Words. Have you ever stopped to think about this matter of a blurred vision? In the spiritual sense, we often suffer from blurred vision when it comes to religion or belief in God, we see what we want to see. Coloured by prejudice is what we’ve created ourselves, and whilst we have little control over our childhood years, we do have the choice to make our own decisions as we grow into the teen years and beyond.
The Apostle Paul had a special prayer for his friends and emphasis that we read in the New Testament and Ephesians 1:18 and a newer version says, ‘I asked God to make your eyes focused and clear so you can see exactly what it is that he is calling you to do’.
How unfortunate would it be to go through life missing out on God’s special plan because your inner eyes or your spiritual eyes were blurred or are blurred. Vision leads us to believe that life is about us, and if we want to go a different way. Well, that’s my business. Jesus is out there somewhere.
Not really a helpful way of thinking. Jesus wants to be our friend and companion 24 hours a day. Why would we want to go through life without him? In the Old Testament, we read the wonderful prayer from Psalm 119 – “open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions” (verse 18). So how do we become spiritually blind? The gospels make clear that it’s a misdirection of our vision.
Here’s what Jesus said in Matthew 6:22-23 – “the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of life. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?”
Spiritual blindness is an internal condition. It occurs when we focus our attention upon our own pride or our limited understanding. And as long as we think we’ve got a clear grasp on reality, we are blind to what it is that is spiritual. We can’t believe until we accept that we don’t know everything. Until we accept that some real things are invisible.
Spiritual Reality
Now you can’t see the wind, but you can feel the effects of a strong wind. We breathe air, even though we can’t see it. And I’m convinced we must change our ways of thinking and understanding as well as our perspectives in order to truly live the lives that God has called us to.
We need to understand that the way this world thinks goes against God the majority of the time. But we’ve been raised in this world. We’ve got minds that are shaped by this world. So let’s allow God to transform our minds so that we think differently than the world. To think like God, to live for God completely, we’ve really got to have his point of view and understanding of things, and until then, our vision is blurred. So how is your spiritual vision today? Do you have a connection with Jesus Christ that allows you to see what’s wrong? What is really important in life rather than what is superficial? How’s your vision?
God’s word – The Bible – gives us clarity as to who we are, who’s we are and who we can become.
Let’s Pray
Dear Lord, all of us, including me, are born blind to the things of God. Heal my lack of insight day by day as I progressively see things more clearly because, Lord, I know it’s the best and most fulfilling way to live. Amen.