40 Days of Embracing Uncertainty - Day 29 (for Monday, March 30)

Clear sight.  Being able to see.  Perfect vision.  20/20.  In the course of my life, I have often wondered about those words or phrases.  Primarily because I have always been partially blind in my left eye.  It’s a condition called amblyopia – or lazy eye, so I’ve learned.  If caught early enough, it could have been changed.  Maybe.  I have never really thought about that part of it.  Mostly, I’ve just wondered what it would be like to see things with both eyes at 100%.  Mind you, this is no lament or – as my Grandma Lempi used to tell me to stop “crying in your beer”.  I never understood the significance behind that, but it was effective.  Just the way my grandma said it made me stop whining about anything.

I’ve shared this with many of you before, so I’m not trying to tell you anything new.  But as I read the devotion for this day, I was just wondering what blind Bartimaeus thought about seeing with both eyes.  Usually, in that day, being blind meant that a person was on the outside looking in.  They would be on the edge of the settlements and towns and cities with all of the other outcasts – the lepers, the lame, the sick, the poor.  I can’t identify with that dynamic.  I was always protected by my family, the community I grew up in, the church that taught me about faith and love and hope.  Truthfully, I wouldn’t really know what it would have been like to ask for healing for my sight – in part because I could see. 

This is the part where I could say something about us being blind to situations or things in the world.  The devotion does that to a degree – tells us that “we are blind to the presence of God within us… blinded by our own sin.”  Sure, there are those times when we might be those things.  But in light of the recent events of our world, I’m not wanting to go there.  Mostly because I’m not so certain that we are blind to those things right now.  I think we can see with perfect vision that we are in uncharted territory and that now, perhaps more than ever, we need to see God’s presence and grace clearly. 

Yes, we remember that we are children of God.  Hopefully, we are not lamenting our situation, but praising God for the loving promises that have been made to us.  We will never be alone.  God will always be with us.  God always cares for His children.  No matter what.  No matter when.

If we can see that, then we’ve got 20/20 spiritual vision and there is no need to lament our condition.  No need to be crying in our beer.

Good thing too, because I don’t even drink beer.