The other day I staged an epic fight within my own house. I scratched and clawed for control but eventually found myself defeated. There was nothing I could do but stand powerless before the mirror, my eye bloodshot, dry, and tired. I would go another day with half of my vision.
As some of you might already know, I have a degenerative eye disease called keratoconus (KC). I’ll let you read more about it, but the basic idea is that my corneas are thinned out to the point where they form a cone. It distorts my vision so that I am unable to see clearly without some kind of correction. (Here’s a great example of what my vision is like if you’re interested.)
I view the world through two thin layers of plastic that I jab in my eye every morning and claw out each night. Without those filters on top of my eyes, I see nothing clearly. Sure, if I squint and tilt my head a bit I can make out what shapes there might be in front of me, maybe even a word or two. Without my lenses, I see nothing clearly.
I can see nothing clearly with my natural eyes, but what about with my spiritual eyes? Do I see a vision of Christ that is pure and exact, one that is a perfectly accurate depiction of who He is? Or are my spiritual eyes like natural eyes: hopelessly and incurably blurred? Can I squint and tilt my spiritual self enough to kind of make out what Christ looks like?
When we accept Christ, when that moment comes that we place our trust and our faith in Him, our spiritual eyes change. The fog begins to lift and we begin to see Christ for who He really is: the sovereign Lord of creation, the Savior of the world. We become what Paul speaks of:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
- I Corinthians 1:18 (NKJV)
We see the things that we once thought of as foolishness much more clearly. When the Holy Spirit penetrates our hearts and jabs that ethereal contact lens onto our spiritual eye (and it sometimes feels that way), our spiritual vision is supernaturally corrected and we see the truth of Christ for the first time.
However, just like I have to go back to the ophthalmologist (never do spell that right) every year to check the condition of my eyes, we have to constantly improve the correction on that spiritual lens through prayer and time spent in the Word. As we grow closer and closer to Him, those spiritual eyes become more accustomed to seeing things through the lens of the Holy Spirit.
Some days we will have troubles. Often, when my soft lenses become dirty and worn, the only thing to do is throw them away and replace them. Those parts of our life that are dirty and worn need to be abandoned to Christ so that he can renew them and restore us to spiritual health. We will never be rid of this until our life is ended and we are face to face with our Savior.
Life is a struggle, and remaining faithful to Christ is a struggle as well. My eyes don’t want this plastic in them and they will sometimes reject it and fight back. Our natural, sinful, depraved selves want to travel the easy road of the flesh and not the narrow road that leads to victory.
So, what to take away from all this, other than if you meet me in person you’ll know what I’m doing if I’m fiddling with my eyes? Our vision of Christ is affected by the spiritual condition of our soul. How we see Him reflects how much we seek Him.
How do you see Christ?