Seeing and Believing
I recently got a new pair of glasses, hoping to see better driving and reading. They are called “progressives,” and have different prescriptions for different areas of the lenses. In the optometry shop, the technician showed me some print in a book, and then asked me to look at the posters around the room to tell her if I could see more clearly. At that stage, everything was looking great. I told her it was all fine, got in my car, and drove home.
In only a few days, I noticed that the words in the book I was reading got harder and harder to distinguish. And as I drove, my husband quizzed me on road signs. These, too, were more blurry than was comfortable. As much as I didn’t want to do it, I needed to go back to the optometrist and have them re-do the lenses.
Two Upside-down principles came to mind as I drove back over to have my glasses changed. One is “be seeing, not hearing.”
If our sight (our view) of others is blurry and off-center, we won’t be able to hear them well and know what God needs us to do for them. Just as others “can’t hear the gospel until they see the gospel,” so also, we will not be effective at sharing a gospel that is out of focus and not applicable to the people God has set before us. That includes our acts of compassion and kindness—If we refuse to see the true need, we cannot show them God’s love.
The second Upside-down principle put on my heart was “Be dependent.”
I knew that the time had long passed when I could just “fake it” and try to get by with worsening eyesight. I needed to be dependent on the eye-doctor for help that would make my seeing successful. In a similar way, I must learn to be dependent on God and the voice of Christ in my life to help others in the way that God had planned. No matter how great my eyes had been before, I needed correction. Regardless of ministry and mission activities in the past, I constantly need to “adjust my seeing” for whatever Christ has at hand for me.
Although it took several weeks, I got new corrected lenses. I also am working on carrying this through to my discipleship life—admitting when things are not clear, seeking to see others for who they are, and learning to be dependent on the living voice of God in my life.