Monochrome

I think I knew I needed glasses for a while before I actually got them.

I would sit on the couch and have to squint at the Tivo menu to read what programs were recorded. Another time, I had picked some friends off at the airport and after I dropped them off I realized I could not read the small green street signs to navigate my way out of their neighborhood. I think it took me about 90 minutes to get home, and it probably should have been 15 to 20. I finally found my way to I-5, and ended up getting back on down by the airport–after I drove through Barrio Logan with the doors locked.

The point being, I could not see for beans, and I knew it. But I resisted getting glasses because I’d had perfect vision my entire life, and it was not possible I no longer did. Besides, glasses were for old people.

And then I realized, I am old people.

So I went to see an eye doctor my friend recommended, and after I got my glasses, I could not believe how much easier things got. I could read the titles from the Tivo menu from across the street–never mind across the living room. I won’t even mention how awesome it was to see street signs without stopping and squinting. Not that it helped me much with getting lost–anyone who knows me can attest to that.

But the short version is that once I finally broke down and sought help, I could see again.

I could see.

I think that’s what it’s like when we finally let down our guards, and let go of our inhibitions and preconceived notions about God and just ask him for eyes to see.

Eyes to see.

I can remember when I finally did that. It just got so frustrating to always have to see things in black and white, based on a set of values that I had accrued over a life jam packed with all kinds of nonsense–most of it created by the lies I allowed myself to believe about God, and about myself, and about the people I was continually made to interact with.

Black and white.

You’d think it would be easier to see things that way–in convenient terms that I understood the definitions for. And in some respects, regarding some things, it is easier. Evil is still evil, and always will be. God is still good, all the time, and always will be.

I think it’s in looking at everything else that we become blind. We become too concerned with labels, and less with the people we’re attempting to fit into our little one-or-two-word definitions. And if they do not fit into the little boxes we’ve created like

Christian
Liberal
Conservative
Good
Evil

then we close our minds to them, and they are simply

WRONG.

And to me, one of the worst things about it is that we deem ourselves worthy enough to judge the worthiness of others in regard to anything.

That is not–and never has been–ours to do.

God judges.

And no one is worthy. All have fallen short of the only judge that matters (Romans 3:23).

Who am I to judge anyone else’s commitment to Jesus? Who am I to hold it up to mine, and find it lacking?

What makes me think I can judge anyone else’s patriotism, or commitment to their family, or that my methods for disciplining my children are better than theirs.

The plain truth is that the world and the things in it are bright, so bright, and they fall over our eyes and cloud our perspectives until we ask and ask and ask God to take them away.

So we can have eyes to see.

To see each other the way He intended us to. To look at His people–even if they don’t believe–and realize he died for them just as much as we who now believe. Maybe even more.

Because He came not for the well, but the sick.

He came to give His life as a ransom for many.

He came to give us eyes to see–to see the world like He does.

Through the eyes of His father.