spiritual myopia

I spent Monday morning in the optometrist’s office, waiting to have my eyes inspected. It had been several years since my last checkup, and I needed a new contact lens prescription. When they called me back to the exam room, I was subjected to a battery of blinding lights, “which-is-better” lens tests, rows of letters in varying sizes, and stinging liquids. After completing the workup, the doctor laughed good-naturedly. “You are a near-sighted individual!”

 

She was right. As I put in my trial pair of lenses, my surroundings came into focus. My eyes took in light and shadow, color and subtle detail with razor sharpness. The world, previously seen in low resolution, now leapt at me in high definition. I was amazed at all that I had been missing. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how poor my eyesight was.

 

Our world is like that.

 

Scripture relates a similar account of corrected vision. Saul, fanatical hunter of all things apostate, was on a mission of bloodlust when he collided with Jesus. In one blinding moment, Saul’s eyes matched the sightlessness of his soul. To him, Jesus had been no less than a heresy to be extinguished; he was so sure of it, he was willing to execute any who dared follow the Way. Yet now, lying in the dusty road, he knew with certainty that he had been wrong. For the first time, it was evident just how blind he was.

 

Sightless and deprived of his life’s mission, Saul spent the next three days praying and fasting. Then a man named Ananias showed up. Laying his hands upon Saul, Ananias said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” In that instant, something resembling scales dropped from Saul’s eyes and he saw clearly again. Within a matter of days, Saul found his new identity as Paul – the renowned evangelist, church-planter, and chosen instrument of Jesus (Acts 9:17-20).

 

How many Sauls walk our streets, muddling through life and work, dreams and heartache every day? How many pursue fruitless ends with the zeal of a radical, blind to the fact that they are blind? How many have yet to meet Jesus? How many sightless Sauls could become visionary Pauls with the touch of our hand?

 

The people of this world have no idea just how myopic they are. It is up to us, the Body of Christ, to convince them, and words alone will not suffice. We must show them; they must see for themselves. Will we be Ananias, daring to touch even the enemies of our faith? Let us remember that they, too, have been invited by Jesus.