journey onWord with us

Although the temperatures in my neck of the woods would suggest Spring, the calendar says we are still weeks removed from the season when we will celebrate Resurrection … He is Risen!  i wonder if reading of it earlier this week made your heart swell with expectancy like it did mine.

Jesus stands before Pilate and declares His kingdom is not of this world.  He shows Himself to the disciples after Resurrection and responds with deep humility and grace to Thomas’ “Unless I see…”  As day breaks, an unidentified voice calls out from the shore and suggests to His fishermen disciples they cast their nets on the other side of the boat.  In the moment after He promises the Spirit and gives His inner circle the great call to go, Jesus literally vanishes into thin air.

Sight is such a central theme to the breath of time Jesus walked among us.  Whether He was restoring it, challenging it, defying it, questioning it, or disappearing from it, the issue of sight was a principal part of the story of Jesus.  He is never recorded as saying it, but Jesus’ entire life shouts “open your eyes!”  Open them to truly see who He was and is.  Open them to truly see the deep Truth in His simple stories.  Open them to truly see the need right in front of you and in the farther off fields of harvest.  Open them to truly see each step of your unique path, which is lit for you by the Word literally breathed from the mouth of the great I Am.

i’ve had two distinct experiences recently, which spoke profoundly to the truths of Sight.  The first was a meaningful drive through a lofty sliver of southeastern West Virginia, while returning my firstborn to college.  As we turned eastward south of Beckley and began the measured descent in the direction of Lewisburg, we were plunged into a dense, all-consuming fog.  My instinct (and my wife’s countenance) shouted “slow down!”  i could not see an inch past where my headlights met the wall of low cloud, and yet i pressed on without hesitation.  With each increment of forward movement, i felt compelled to make a decision.  Each time my foot answered with stillness or throttle.  How could i possibly keep my thumb from cancelling cruise?  How could i possibly choose gas over break?  What kept my pace steady when a wall of white obscured everything from my view?

In the minutes and miles of blindness, i wrestled with the truths of sight.  i considered how the fog illustrated times of uncertainty, aimlessness, or suffering in my life – – those times when the way forward was varying degrees of cloudy to completely obscured.  i challenged myself to trust God — to go full speed forward until He prompted me concerning the dangers or obstructions i could not see.  i “saw” in the “darkness.”  i celebrated each time we broke into a clear patch and returned to prayer when we drove into the settled clouds once again.

Last week, i was walking the return leg of my weekly trip to the mailbox to mail a letter to my son at college.  As I turned the familiar corner and began walking the longest uninterrupted stretch of sidewalk of my trek, i wondered internally how well i knew it.  Did i remember where the uneven transitions were between sidewalk sections, the specific tree or two whose branches must be weaker by age or by species, the less manicured lawns that encroach on the full walking width?  i wondered how long i could walk, if i closed my eyes to test the remembrance, without either tripping up or wandering off onto the grass.  i took one last long look, closed my eyes, and began to stride forward.  That was, until after ten or so steps, i realized the potentially fatal consequences of my little test in my observation that people backing out of driveways in our general neighborhood were less careful than they really should be.

As i opened my eyes and continued on, i thought longer and deeper about the truth of sight.  And how silly it seemed to choose to close my eyes.  Was this the best test of knowing?  God has blessed me with sight.  How foolish is it to not engage that sense fully?  There are some who are not able, and who possess heightened acuity of their other senses because of it.  They can “see” things that i may not or cannot.

As i walked on, i did so with a renewed sense of gratitude and resolve.  God’s design for this world did not include blindness … in our humanity or in our walking and talking with Him.  How precious it is to have been given sight … twice.  The first time, as He formed me in my mother’s womb.  The second, when, as a child, my heart believed in what Jesus did for me in dying and rising – He is Risen!   Open my eyes, Lord, i want to see Jesus.  Open my eyes, Lord, i want to see real need.  Open my eyes, Lord, i want to see the tricks and “treats” my enemy hopes to keep hidden from my notice.  May i never choose to blind myself to any of those things.

Clear sight is a gift from God, and trusting him in the fog is a choice i make with each step and each mile of the journey He has chosen for me.  Open my eyes, Lord.  And in the times where the road ahead is obscured with uncertainty or suffering, lead me and go with me.  I trust in You.