Perfect Vision

As we start out on this New Year, which we will no doubt all call ‘Twenty-twenty’, I can’t help but think about how well we are seeing the truth of God and ourselves. This is because 20/20, as you may well know, is one of the ways of expressing perfect clear vision (it means, having perfect clarity at 20ft, if you are interested). Jesus, Immanuel, came to earth, as Isaiah had prophesied, to open blind eyes and to give us a new vision of God. He came so that we could ‘see’ the Father, His unconditional love for us and His amazing glory expressed through the life and work of Jesus the Son.

Jesus, whilst on earth, often used a physical example to help us understand and comprehend a more difficult spiritual concept. For this reason, as well as for the good of the individuals concerned, Jesus opened physical blind eyes. He was demonstrating a deeper spiritual truth, which He had proclaimed as part of His mission statement in Luke 4. When each of us came to know Jesus, we had an experience of our blind spiritual eyes being opened. We might have said, ‘the penny dropped’ or ‘I got it’, but the Bible says, our blind eyes were opened and we, who had lived in darkness saw a great light! It may have occurred in a moment in time or been a more gradual revelation, but we ‘saw’ and comprehended the truth of who Jesus was, and is, and how much we needed, and still need Him, to save us and transform us.

Jesus restored sight to the physically blind on several occasions, but once the man concerned, although he had received a measure of healing, said that he could only see ‘men like trees, walking’ (Mark 8:24). When Jesus heard this, He put His hands on the man’s eyes a second time and told him to look up. This action resulted in restoration of a new clarity of the man’s sight. We might say his vision was restored to 20/20.

I wonder if, as we start this New Year, we can be fully confident that we have 20/20 spiritual sight. I suspect that your answer, like mine, is “I don’t think I do, but I’d like to see better”.. So, if we desire an increased measure of spiritual clarity, if we long for something much nearer to 20/20 spiritual vision, perhaps now is a good time to ask Jesus to lay His hands on our spiritual eyes again, so this year we might ‘see’ more clearly.

Prayer: Jesus, our Saviour and the Opener of blind eyes, we come to You today to ask You to lay Your hands on our spiritual eyes again at the start of this New Year, 2020. We will look up, as You told the blind man to do, so that we might receive from You a new clarity of spiritual sight. We want to ‘see’ You more clearly, know You and our Heavenly Father more fully, and have an increased revelation of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within us. Thank You that Your healing power is available to increasingly clear the fog from our spiritual eyes. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.