Remember the old flash cameras that gave you momentary blindness after the photo was taken? You had to blink a few times to get those yellow circles to stop distorting your vision.
Other things can distort your vision too. You can be blinded by the bright lights of an oncoming motor vehicle. You have to look away when the sun manages to get exactly in your field of vision. You might develop cataracts that limit your ability to see. The thing is we all have limited vision in one way or another.
Though we may deal with our limitations just fine in our physical bodies, our spiritual selves need more attention. Spiritual blindness is not as easy to detect. After all, we don’t know we aren’t seeing clearly, well, until we actually see something clearly. Clarity happens in that moment when the light suddenly dawns, the solution comes, the answer appears. It’s a glorious moment and one that motivates you to keep going, keep moving past the problems and develop a victory plan.
Recently, I had to take a visual field test when I was at the eye doctor. It’s an annoying test that requires you to keep trying to find a tiny light as it flashes all around. When you see it, you press a button. The problem is that if you get distracted, or your mind wanders, or you simply aren’t concentrating for even a second, you can throw the whole test off and not pick up those little points of light.
I’m thinking this is a reasonable metaphor for life. While we’re busy looking for the light in one direction, it pops up somewhere else. We get distracted and lose our focus. Our minds wander and before we know it, we’re seeing little lights even where there aren’t any. We imagine things that aren’t even there. Once we imagine them though, we convince ourselves they are real. It’s pretty tricky. The thing about the eye test that is true for us too, is that the whole time you’re taking the test, you’re only supposed to look at the one big light in the center of the screen. You’re not supposed to wander off when other lights flash. If you stay focused on the one light, you’ll do well.
I’m thinking that’s what Jesus was trying to tell us when He said, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness but will have the light that gives life.” So, there it is. The answer! All we have to do is step away from the darkness and keep our eyes on the Light, the one Light of the world. Everything else is just a flash in the pan and not even worth our time.
Just sayin’.