When I was in the 4th grade you might say that I discovered I needed glasses by happenstance. That year my teacher, Miss Owen arranged the seating in her classroom in alphabetical order. I am by nature a front row kind of person but since my name started with a “V”, I was relegated to the back row. I found very quickly that I couldn’t see what was written on the blackboard. Even though I made a legitimate case for being moved back to the front row, Miss Owen was not going to have any part of it. This necessitated a quick trip to the eye doctor to find that I was very near sighted. When I put on my new glasses for the first time, they made me a bit dizzy. I was amazed on our drive back home that I could actually see the leaves on the trees. Before I put on my glasses, I never realized what I was missing. A new world opened up to me.
How we see the world, very much depends on how we look at the world. My story is about physical vision but in her poem, “Aurora Leigh”, Elizabeth Barrett Browning describes what it is to have spiritual vision. She writes… “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes, The rest sit around it, and pluck blackberries, And daub their natural faces unaware…”
I often feel like the one unaware, too busy picking blackberries to notice the evidence of the Holy all around me. It’s not until I purposely slow down that I am able to look at what is right in front of me. It’s when I look back over my life that I then can see the fingerprints of God all through it. Being aware has become much more important to me. Awareness followed by action releases the power of God if we allow ourselves to be attentive to the Spirit. This is repeated over and over throughout the Bible. One of my favorite accounts of new found vision involves the conversion of the apostle Paul.
As Saul of Tarsus was making his way to Damascus with warrants for the arrest of the followers of Jesus living there, he was struck down by a bright light and was blinded. He heard the voice of Christ asking him why he was persecuting Him. He remained blind for 3 days until he was visited by a believer named Ananias. While Ananias was praying, he had a vision in which he was instructed by the Lord specifically to go to a certain location and lay his hands on Saul to heal him of his blindness. Ananias knew who Saul was and feared him. He questioned the Lord by telling Him that this man Saul, had been persecuting HIs followers. But the Lord again instructed Ananias by saying, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Ananias obeyed the Lord and went in to Saul telling him, “Brother Saul, The Lord-Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here-has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately Saul was able to see again, was baptized and began preaching about Jesus who had turned his life around. Soon his name was changed to Paul and instead of persecuting the followers of Jesus, he became one of the most vocal of His disciples.
Paul was not only given the gift of his physical sight but the even greater gift of spiritual sight-the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit had already been given to the other apostles and believers on Pentecost. It came as a holy fire and caused them to speak in other languages so that everyone who heard them could understand. For quite a long time, I held on to the belief that the Spirit only worked in dramatic ways as it did on Pentecost. Surely this only happened in the times of the early church and didn’t happen in modern times. However, I have come to know through my own experience that the Spirit most often works in very subtle ways. The Spirit is the nudge that encourages, the still small voice that instructs, and the warming of the heart that instills compassion. The Spirit opens our eyes to all that God has prepared for us. This is the holiness seen in every bush described by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But it also is the holiness seen in each person, no matter their age, race or social status. The Spirit opens our eyes to see like Jesus. When we begin to see the world as Jesus sees it, it changes us forever. Oh yes, we can try to shut off the promptings of the Spirit, but it pursues us in the colors of every spectacular sunset, in the joy of every child’s laughter, and in the beauty of every sacred song. We begin to see the fingerprints of God in everything. And when our eyes are opened, we cannot nor want to go back to the way we were seeing the world before.
Just as I could not imagine seeing the world without my glasses, I can’t imagine not allowing the Spirit to open my eyes daily to the world God has set before me. My vision is faulty. But the Lord is working always to perfect it, just as His vision is perfect. As in the old hymn, I ask, “Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that thou art; Thou my best thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, thy presence my Light.”
