I WANT TO SEE
SCRIPTURE
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."
-Mark 10:51
When our daughter began to lose her eyesight, her world changed. She could still see light, but it wasn't enough. Shapes lost their edges, and faces ran together. Words drowned on pages without hope of rescue. What she couldn't see with her eyes, she began to see with her ears and her heart. She learned that sight was a whole-body experience.
Jesus understood that sight is more than a function of the eyes alone. He spoke against the unnecessary blindness that had disabled his church family. He called Pharisees "blind guides" (Matthew 23:16). It was self-inflicted blindness. They couldn't see who Jesus was because they wouldn't see.
Where is our blindness today? Where are we quick to point a finger at someone else's sin and pat ourselves on the back with pharisaical arrogance, thinking, I am not like them? Pride can make us blind much more quickly than disease can. What if we used this journey to the cross to ask Jesus to help us see better? How could we use our sight to look at ourselves through God's eyes and not just our own? The healing of a blind heart is harder than the healing of physical blindness. We see what we want to see without processing the deficit.
In a hopeful story, a stumbling blind man pushed through the crowd to get to Jesus.
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked the blind man.
"I want to see."
Jesus answered his cry, and a whole new world burst into color and nuance before him. We need to ask Jesus for the same world-opening sight.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Where do you have difficulty seeing others as Jesus sees them?
2. Where are you blind to your own faults but quick to point out faults in others?
AFFIRMATION
Jesus can heal my heart's blindness if I ask.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Lord of perfect vision, open the eyes of my heart, that I may see myself and the world as you see them.
SCRIPTURE
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."
-Mark 10:51
When our daughter began to lose her eyesight, her world changed. She could still see light, but it wasn't enough. Shapes lost their edges, and faces ran together. Words drowned on pages without hope of rescue. What she couldn't see with her eyes, she began to see with her ears and her heart. She learned that sight was a whole-body experience.
Jesus understood that sight is more than a function of the eyes alone. He spoke against the unnecessary blindness that had disabled his church family. He called Pharisees "blind guides" (Matthew 23:16). It was self-inflicted blindness. They couldn't see who Jesus was because they wouldn't see.
Where is our blindness today? Where are we quick to point a finger at someone else's sin and pat ourselves on the back with pharisaical arrogance, thinking, I am not like them? Pride can make us blind much more quickly than disease can. What if we used this journey to the cross to ask Jesus to help us see better? How could we use our sight to look at ourselves through God's eyes and not just our own? The healing of a blind heart is harder than the healing of physical blindness. We see what we want to see without processing the deficit.
In a hopeful story, a stumbling blind man pushed through the crowd to get to Jesus.
"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked the blind man.
"I want to see."
Jesus answered his cry, and a whole new world burst into color and nuance before him. We need to ask Jesus for the same world-opening sight.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Where do you have difficulty seeing others as Jesus sees them?
2. Where are you blind to your own faults but quick to point out faults in others?
AFFIRMATION
Jesus can heal my heart's blindness if I ask.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Lord of perfect vision, open the eyes of my heart, that I may see myself and the world as you see them.
Posted in Lent