“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Deuteronomy 4:9a
Picking up and settling my still-new prescription glasses on my face, I was simultaneously struck with two thoughts: “Oh no, there’s something wrong with my glasses! Everything is blurred through the left lens;” and “You, dummy, you smeared your face cream across the left lens of your glasses last night when you took them off!” The problem, quickly identified, was easily resolved.
Those brief seconds of blurred vision jettisoned my thoughts backward in time to Granny—my momma’s mother.
Granny was a worn and defeated woman. Her frown came much more quickly than her smile. She lived with Grandpa in a beat-up farmhouse whose better days were lifetimes in the past. Farm life had not treated her kindly, nor had her husband.
As a child, I didn’t know or understand the cruel hardships of her life in the country. What I did notice was that her glasses always had dirty lenses—always.
Several times during every visit, Momma would gently remove Granny’s wire-framed glasses from her face to clean them. She would carefully wipe away smudges and smears, polish the lenses until they sparkled, and then lovingly replace Granny’s clean glasses on her nose.
It was a sweet and loving gesture by my Momma, but it never took long for those glasses to revert to their previous smeared, dirty condition.
Decades later, I now wonder if Granny wanted her glasses to stay dirty so that she wouldn’t have to see the ugliness of her life. What a sad commentary, if that is true – and I suspect that it is – she was intentionally living with blurred vision.
But if you intentionally blur your vision so you don’t have to see the reality of your existence, it doesn’t change the truth. Just because you can’t see the ugly clearly, the ugly doesn’t go away.
Dirty glasses create blurred vision. Fuzzy images that lack clarity temporarily mask your view of your reality, but they do not change the truth of your reality.
That is why Scripture instructs us to live with open eyes.
Do you recall the story of Elisha and his servant? The king of Syria learned that the prophet Elisha was providing the King of Israel with information about Syria’s battle plans, thus thwarting Syria’s efforts in battle. Determined to stop Elisha, the Syrian army surrounded the city of Dothan, where Elisha and his servant lived.
Waking to find horses and chariots circling the entire city, Elisha’s servant panicked.
“Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see. So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.’” (2 Kings 6:17 ESV)
Elisha prayed that God would open his servant’s eyes so that he could see God’s mighty protective forces. The Lord cleared the young man’s vision so that he could see the truth of their situation.
The enemy army that looked so ferocious was encircled by God’s army of horses and chariots of fire. God was in complete control of the situation.
Then, in an ironic twist, God blinded the Syrian army and instructed Elisha to lead them straight into the hands of the King of Israel and his army. Instead of destroying the Syrian army, God opened their eyes and instructed Israel’s king to feed the enemy and send them back to their homeland.
A clear vision of God’s hand at work reassured the frightened servant and turned a likely blood bath of a battle into a truce between enemy armies.
An open-eyed awareness of their situation introduced the Syrian army to the mercy and kindness of Jehovah, Israel’s God (2 Kings 6:8-23).
The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 119 was keenly aware of the need to keep his eyes open and fixed on God.
Psalm 119…
“Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. V.6
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. V.15 Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. V.18
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. V.37”
In the New Testament, Scripture doesn’t detail all of the miracles and healings that Jesus performed. John concluded his epistle with the statement that if all of Jesus’ works and miracles were recorded in books, there would be too many books for the world to contain them.
So, I find it interesting that of the many miraculous works that Jesus did, much detailed attention is given to the healing of the blind (Matt. 9:27-18, 12:22, 20:30; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43; John 9:1-38).
In Mark 8 (v. 23-25), when Jesus and his disciples enter Bethsaida, they are met by a blind man and his friends. They’d gone to Jesus for healing.
Jesus led the blind man out of the village, spat on his eyes, and laid His hands on him. Then Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” The man answered that he saw people, but they looked like walking trees.
At that point, Jesus could have told the man that he was much better off than he had been before. He could now get around on his own. He would eventually figure out how to get by with blurry vision.
But that’s not how Jesus works; half a miracle was not satisfactory. Blurry vision is still impaired vision.
“Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:23-25 ESV)
Jesus knew life would be difficult to navigate without clear vision, and so He healed him completely, restoring his sight.
It’s the same with us, friend, if we walk through life with a blurry vision of God, His Son, the Holy Spirit, and all that He has given to sanctify, guide, teach, grow, and bless us in our faith walk. Half-blinded and always fearful of the next step, we would be stunted in every area of our spiritual lives.
If we are walking with blurred vision, not clearly seeing who God is and who we are in Him, it’s because of the choices we have made. It’s our doing, not God’s. He does not intend for His children to stumble through life because of blurred vision.
Wrong choices and poor decisions can be altered with the help of God—lives can be set back on the right path.
Our God is kind. He is merciful, loving, and forgiving. He will open our eyes. He will give us clear vision if we ask in faith, believing, and walk away from anything that tries to blur our vision and blind our eyes.
Are you walking with clear eyes? Or is your vision blurred?
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law. Psalm 119:18 ESV