When I was a young lad, my mom caught me squinting at road signs while we driving on the highway.  Before I knew it, we went to see Dr. John Noe, an optometrist in Butler, so I could get my first pair of glasses.  What was once a blur at a distance, I now could see clearly!  I’ve worn either glasses or contact lenses ever since.  At one point it was just my mother and I who wore glasses.  My dad and my siblings all had 20/20 vision.  Now my dad wears glasses and all my siblings have to wear readers!  Revenge is a dish best served cold (or so the saying goes).  From what I know about my family, we’ve not had anyone who was considered physically blind.  A lot of folks with glasses, but no one that met the standards for being classified as legally blind.  While we escaped physical blindness, there was other blindness there.  Physical loss of sight isn’t the only form of blindness in our world.

Very few of us escape this domain fully sighted in every aspect of life – most of us are blind or have our blind spots in our lives.  We can be blind to a mannerism that we have.  I was in youth group with a kid who rocked back and forth all the time.  I’m not sure he was aware of it.  I’ve been around people who has a least one leg that bounces all the time.  I’m not sure they are fully aware of this.  We can also be blind to some of our behaviors.  I know a person who is an extreme amplifier when it comes to communication.  Margaret and I went to lunch with her one time.  We met at 10 am in the morning and left her at 4 pm.  Our lunch guest talked more that 99% of the time.  I might have said 10 words in 6 hours.  I’m confident that she is blind to this behavior.  They say that “love is blind” and some of us wonder how a friend, a relative, or one of own children can overlook the obvious faults in their significant other.  Then we realize that we might do the same thing – turn a blind eye to things.  The beauty of following Jesus is that we come to understand that we don’t have to remain blind, especially to the things of God in this world.

Our faith opens our eyes to inequities in our world.  Faith opens our eyes to the needs of others.  Faith opens our eyes to possibilities of transformation in our own hearts and lives.  Faith opens us up to new opportunities to be a neighbor that shares God’s love.  Faith can help us see, again.

I invite you to take time and read each of the scriptures above as you move to reflect on the questions below.  Take a moment and contemplate the ways you are blind and how faith can help you see again.  Lastly, I pray that God bless the reading of God’s Word and the meditations of your heart.