Glasses

I remember the day my eldest son got glasses. He relayed after the fact the dread and the dour attitude accompanied him to the optometrist's to pickup his new specs. Then he put them on.

He had assumed that you simply see leaves on trees from a distance, that they were just blobs of green. Oh, to see individual leaves!

About a year and a half ago I grew tired of contorting my eyes to focus upon the pages of my bedtime stories, and so I picked up a pair of Walmart +150's for $7.00, and -- blam! -- the words were huge!

Today it became official. "Read the smallest line," said the eye tech. 10 and 11 used to be a breeze. Today I could not read nine. Nor eight. "I can read line six," I confessed like a student who understood one lone question of a ten-problem test.

For my remaining days in my current profession, I am required to wear...BIFOCALS!!! (Cue the screechy horror music.)

As I pondered this testimony to my age, I came to appreciate the many ways God helps us to see that we've been seeing poorly. Stimulus packages might consume my moments. Or A-Rod's steroid predicament (really, it was only three seasons). Or perhaps the hideous options for the Academy Awards. Then God, in His extraordinary goodness, gives us (me) an eye exam and tells us we need glasses.

The exam might come through tragedy. A lost loved one. The evaporation of our IRA's. The disintegration of our nation. God uses such difficulties to call our attention to Him (Luke 13:1-5).

It might happen through a brother in Christ. Think of the two-by-four that wacked David when Nathan had the courage to confront him about taking his subordinate's wife and then having that man, one of his elite soldiers, murdered.

It happens when God speaks to us in His word (if we study it) and through our listening for Him in prayer.

It can happen in the most random circumstances.

In an instant, all refocuses. God sits enthroned. I stand naked before Him as His creature. All that I am is by and for His good pleasure. Stark clarity returns to all that surrounds me.

Many folks don't like to be told that an eye exam might be in order (gentle nudge) or that they might need glasses (neck-snapping push). I have no doubt that I will experience inconvenience in the days and weeks ahead. But then again, I look forward to seeing the leaves.