Our Messes, God's MiracleSample

The Importance of Seeing

Learning to see is a lifelong process. But learning to see is more than just the physical development of our eyes, because there are many ways to see. Intellectually, seeing is often used synonymously with observing, comprehending, and processing the data your senses relay to your brain.

When it comes to your emotions, seeing refers to empathy, compassion, and your awareness of your own feelings and the feelings of others. In recent years the phrase emotional intelligence has evolved from a leadership buzzword to a mainstream concept, referring to your ability, both innate and cultivated, to recognize the emotions of others and see issues and situations through their eyes.

Spiritually, seeing goes beyond our physical, intellectual, and emotional senses and abilities and becomes a matter of faith, which matures over time as we learn to trust God for all we need and in all areas of our lives. Faith requires confidence in what usually cannot be seen by our human faculties. Spiritual vision clearly does not rely on the accuracy of our ocular organs, the eyes. No matter how healthy, wealthy, and stealthy someone may be, their spiritual vision relies on their relationship with Jesus Christ. Sometimes you cannot read the fine print, but you can see clearly what matters most. Sometimes you can read the eye chart perfectly but remain blind to your own heart.

This is at the heart of one of Jesus’ most profound and provocative miracles. In fact, the situation surrounding this miracle is as fascinating as the method Jesus employed to give sight to a blind man He encountered. This encounter illustrates the collision of physical healing and spiritual blindness and explores the dilemma of human suffering from an eternal perspective.

As Jesus and His disciples were out walking, they saw a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus spat on the ground, made mud with His saliva and the dirt, and then spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. Then Jesus told the man, with his eyes still covered in this mud mask, to wash himself in the nearby Pool of Siloam. The man went there, washed, and returned seeing.

Anytime you lose sight of God, the devil tries to blindfold you from the truth, but God often chooses to meet us in the muck and mire of our greatest trials and produce a miracle of healing and wholeness.