STICK A NEEDLE IN MY EYE

“The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Ephesians 1:18 (NKJV)

Can’t see straight?  Embarrassed when you don’t recognize people you should know?  Dislike running into walls?  Stub your toes or trip over objects in your pathway?  Handicapped by blurred, dim or double vision? Blame the eyes, guys. You need glasses.  The need to see clearly dominates the human experience.  Thus, eyecare sits atop the list of the five senses.    

“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!”  Echoes of that grisly childhood ditty still cause me to shudder.  No wonder.  Most of us react emotionally when thinking about losing our eyesight.  The worst horror stories involve eyes being stabbed, poked, burned out with a hot poker, plucked out, or splashed with acid.  The universal aversion to eye injuries shows up in multiple tales in history.  Samson lost his eyes to his Philistine torturers.  In Greek mythology, as the Cyclops (the one-eyed giant) sleeps, Odysseus and his men heat the tip of the sharpened log in a fire and then ram it into his eye, blinding him.  Jesus suggested it would be better to pluck one’s eyes out than to go to hell.  “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.” Matthew 18:9 (NKJV)

But, more than eyesight, the twenty-first century discussion about eyes really focuses (no pun intended) on eyeglasses.  In contemplating this topic, a connection between eyeglasses and spiritual eyesight began to appear.  This may be a stretch, but the connotation seemed to me too obvious to miss.  The surprising fact is that we choose eyeglasses for many reasons other than the need for corrective lenses.  Let me also suggest that we manage and manipulate our spiritual vision to advance our life’s personal narrative.  Unfortunately, the “eyes of our understanding” often fall short of enlightenment. 

Designer frames.  You can get some wild frames these days in the optician’s showrooms.  Frames made to look like fingers, lens covered with spiderwebs, and macabre arachnid legs growing out of the frames are all available for purchase.  Also, the usual unusual colors like fire engine red, orchid purple, stark white, and rainbow colors may be ordered.  Why?  People choose designer frames to “make a statement.”  In terms of the “eyes of understanding,” what does this mean?  It means that people also frame their worldview as a function of their psychological desires, both consciously and subconsciously.  It’s not that they want to actually see better, it’s that they want to be seen as seeing better.  It’s not what they believe, it’s whether people perceive their beliefs as cool.  Sycophants, phonies, and plastic minions populate the planet today whose main goal in life is to fit in, to be accepted, to glom onto every popular idea out there.  Authenticity, the foundation for a genuine, fulfilled life gets bartered away for an illusion.  

Clear lenses.  Akin to the designer frames people, the clear lens people don’t really need glasses, they just want to mimic the perception that glasses make people look better, smarter, richer or more important.  Likewise, many people have no intention of changing their viewpoint or believing the Bible, but they want the look of a discriminating, open-minded seeker of truth.  Thus, we have Christians-in-name-only who betray the Gospel so as to reap believers’ benefits without truly believing.  Paul called them “false brethren.” “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.” Galatians 2:4 (KJV). 

Bifocals. Myopic people see clearly up close, but their far-sighted vision is blurry. The invention of split lenses, a.k.a. bifocals, enable people to see both near or far simply by shifting their eyes up or down.  Spiritually speaking, this generation can shift its view from near to far and back again as quickly as their spiritual bifocals will permit.  The moment their spiritual authority makes a demand that impinges on their independence or self-will, they disappear.  Loyalty, consistency, and faithfulness have increasingly become relics of the past.  Thus, the benefits of these virtues have waned as well.  What you see is what you get now defines mano-a-mano interaction, stripping it of rich, personal meaning in our human exchanges.  Instead of looking out for each other, we now just say, “Look out!” 

Astigmatism.  This condition results from one or both eyes being out of round.  Without correction, those who suffer from astigmatism see blurred, distorted images.  The exact cause is unknown, but studies indicate that it can either be genetic, caused by surgery, or having incurred an eye injury.  We often wonder why some people never seem to get their lives straightened out.  Spiritual astigmatism may be the reason.  Those who have suffered from abuse, deep personal tragedy, or a dysfunctional home environment may have a difficult time seeing the things that seem clear to others.  

Transition.  Transition lenses get darker when struck by ultraviolet rays and lighten when moved out of the reach of those rays.   Transitions lenses contain special patented photochromic dyes that cause the lens to activate.  Our spiritual eyesight can also change dramatically when sin, toxic attitudes, misperceptions, and misunderstandings infect our vision.  Their light becomes dark, their bright becomes shadowy, and previously understood principles and doctrines lose their clarity.  It is extremely frustrating when people believe one way for most of their lives and then, suddenly, they deny those very truths and go another direction.  Sin is a dangerous dye.  Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness.” Luke 11:34 (NKJV) 

Diplopia (double vision).  Nerve or muscle damage in the eye can cause double vision.  Each eye creates its own image of the environment and relays it to the brain. The brain then combines the signals from each eye to create a unified picture.  It is important for both eyes to work together to create depth of field.  Damaged muscles that move the eyes or the nerves that control eye movement can result in two images.  Often, these muscles cannot be repaired.  Special lenses called prisms can correct the vision and turn the differing images into one picture.  Likewise, damaged spiritual vision sends conflicting images to the mind.  Remember, the fleshly nature will always see things from a carnal perspective.  In his letter to the Romans, Paul enlarged on this thought.  Read carefully.  “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.  And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”  Romans 8:6-10 (NKJV).  

The only answer to diplopia is to see the world through a divine lens.  The Word of God activated by the indwelling Spirit of God elevates us to God’s vantage point.  Only when we see the way God sees can we truly understand the issues of life.  Nature leads us to predicate all action on what we see.  Fear, doubt, panic, and confusion inundate us when we see from a human perspective.  Having a correct spiritual vision is critical.  Think of the spies sent by Moses into Canaan.  “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.  There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”  Numbers 13:30-33 (NKJV) 

Joshua and Caleb also saw the giants.  Their perspective, however, let the see their God towering above the giants. 

It’s all in the eyesight.  What do you see today?