Vision

So I recently got new glasses. I had gone without for about a year. I'm near-sighted, so it only became a problem when I was watching a movie at the movie theater, driving, or sitting at the back of a class or meeting. (Not to worry, I passed my driver's vision test without my glasses). I could see things in front of me and I could see things far away, except for the details. After having my glasses, everything seemed newer and brighter, as I could see all the details of a person's face from far away or the skyline of the city in focus or the details of every leaf and branch on a faraway tree. I could also read road signs from much farther away and watch tv in focus from across the room.

Today, I heard in church, the old familiar hymn, Be Thou My Vision, which has always been my favorite, due to its celtic sound and meaningful words. My last year at college, I shared an arrangement of it that I had written for a contemporary service that met every Wed night at Valparaiso's Lutheran Chapel. It was a gift night, an opportunity to share one of your God-given abilities with the college YA community, as a semester was ending and many were graduating. I arranged a version of Be Thou My Vision, complete with a lot of Celtic lilts included. At that time, I didn't know where I would be living, nor had I found a teaching job. I was trusting God with my future. That day, it really seemed symbolic of trusting the Lord with my whole life ahead, whatever befall. Today, I heard the hymn with new ears (or should I say new eyes). We're not just trusting God with our future, but we're asking God to be our vision, even for those things in the future that seem so faraway, confusing, and unclear. Our vision is blurry and we see only part of the details, but God's vision is always 20/20. We need to put on God and trust Him to show us the details in His time. Trust Him to one day clear our vision to see with His eyes the purpose and completeness in loss, pain, struggles, and hardship. What a difference my glasses have made in my vision. One day, God's eyes will be all I need to see clearly.

"Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face. What I know now is not complete. But someday I will know completely, just as God knows me completely." ~1 Corinthians 13:12