One reason I quit wearing contact lenses was that I was always losing them.
But in one of those days when my absent-mindedness was still propelling me toward the inevitable decision, I stood at the window. One eye had a contact lens. The other was legally blind.
I looked out with first one eye closed, and then the other. The near-sighted eye could clearly see the screen, the dust, the cobwebs. Obviously I needed to clean. Beyond the screen was only a hazy blur of green, too indistinct to give more than a passing glance.
Then I looked through the corrected eye and found that the screen faded almost completely from view. I knew it was there, but what I saw, what my eye was able to focus on, was the beauty of the vista beyond the screen: flower and trees, even individual blades of grass. I marveled as if I had never looked outside before.
I played the game for a minute. Bad eye, screen. Good eye, beauty. Thank God for corrective lenses, to look beyond the screen.
What was David thinking when he looked at Goliath and said, “I’m going to feed you to the buzzards”? What did he see beyond the giant?
How was it that Hudson Taylor could come to the end of his life, after losing a wife and child in China, after multiple hardships and broken health, and in the spirit of Hebrews 10:34 say, “I never made a sacrifice”? What could he see beyond those hardships? What had happened to his spiritual eyes?
How could Moses turn his back on the riches and pleasures of Egypt? How could he, as Hebrews 11 says, turn his gaze away and fix his attention on something no one else could perceive with physical eyes? What could he see beyond those physical attractions?
What did Paul mean when he told the Ephesians in chapter 1 that he wanted the eyes of their perception to be filled with light? Can spiritual eyes, even the eyes of Christians, be legally blind? What are those things he talks about, those things we’re supposed to see? Are they worth begging God for corrective lenses?
Lord, fix our vision to fix our gaze—beyond the Cares of this World and the Deceitfulness of Riches. Fill our eyes with light to see beyond the Giants.
Spirit of Christ, give us eyes to see your Beauty. Your Power.
Beyond the Screen.
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