Lost Eyeglasses and Restored Vision
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
One Sunday after church, needing milk, I went into Safeway. My new prescription sunglasses were there in my blue jacket going in and missing when I came out. I retraced my steps through the store without result, talked to the store manager ("Don't worry—nine times out of ten these things turn up."), left my phone number with him and drove home, squinting in the glare, with that heavy, frustrated feeling of having lost something valuable. My one hope lay in the narrow sticker with my name and address that I'd glued onto one arm of the glasses.
Twenty-four hours later, no call from Safeway. "Nine times out of ten?" I was sure I was the tenth time.
From experience, I know that when I lose something God often is trying to get my attention. I realized that I'd failed to ask the Lord's help in finding my glasses and raised a quick, arrow prayer: "Lord, please restore my glasses. And uncloud my inner lenses, my perception of you. Forgive my inattentiveness, my shortsightedness, my preoccupation." The next moment, I heard a man's voice calling from my driveway: "Is this 300 Menlo Oaks Drive?"
"Sure is!" I yelled as I went to greet a smiling, vaguely familiar man. Without another word, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out . . . my missing glasses. "I been lookin' for this street two hours," he said. Sweaty brow. No car in the street. I realized he'd been walking.
"Where do you live?" I asked.
"Gilroy. I come up by bus."
"All that way? Today?" (Gilroy was 70 miles to the south.)
"Si. I had to find you to give them back." A round trip of 140 miles to return a stranger's glasses! I remembered now—he'd stood ahead of me at the Safeway checkout—no wonder he looked familiar. I thanked God and my new friend for prayer answered and clear vision restored.
It's when you lose your glasses that you learn how much you need them. To focus clearly. To notice detail. To discern the importance of vision. The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, people perish."
Dark glasses? In our human condition we only see "through a glass, darkly," perhaps because a blazing view of Almighty God would be too much for us. We are finite and fragile, like Moses, who had to be shielded from God's overpowering presence in a rock crevice.
And bifocals? Yes. We need both sight and in-sight. We need to see both visible and transcendent realities. A friend once gave me a blank journal and said: "Write in it what you see, and what you cannot see." Paul told the Corinthians to look at "what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." (2 Cor. 4:18) Or, as The Message expresses it, "There's far more here than meets the eye . . ."
Questions for Discussion:
• How much do you attend to the visible realities around you?
• By comparison, how much attention do you give to discerning the evidences of God's supernatural love and power in your life?
Twenty-four hours later, no call from Safeway. "Nine times out of ten?" I was sure I was the tenth time.
From experience, I know that when I lose something God often is trying to get my attention. I realized that I'd failed to ask the Lord's help in finding my glasses and raised a quick, arrow prayer: "Lord, please restore my glasses. And uncloud my inner lenses, my perception of you. Forgive my inattentiveness, my shortsightedness, my preoccupation." The next moment, I heard a man's voice calling from my driveway: "Is this 300 Menlo Oaks Drive?"
"Sure is!" I yelled as I went to greet a smiling, vaguely familiar man. Without another word, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out . . . my missing glasses. "I been lookin' for this street two hours," he said. Sweaty brow. No car in the street. I realized he'd been walking.
"Where do you live?" I asked.
"Gilroy. I come up by bus."
"All that way? Today?" (Gilroy was 70 miles to the south.)
"Si. I had to find you to give them back." A round trip of 140 miles to return a stranger's glasses! I remembered now—he'd stood ahead of me at the Safeway checkout—no wonder he looked familiar. I thanked God and my new friend for prayer answered and clear vision restored.
It's when you lose your glasses that you learn how much you need them. To focus clearly. To notice detail. To discern the importance of vision. The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, people perish."
Dark glasses? In our human condition we only see "through a glass, darkly," perhaps because a blazing view of Almighty God would be too much for us. We are finite and fragile, like Moses, who had to be shielded from God's overpowering presence in a rock crevice.
And bifocals? Yes. We need both sight and in-sight. We need to see both visible and transcendent realities. A friend once gave me a blank journal and said: "Write in it what you see, and what you cannot see." Paul told the Corinthians to look at "what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." (2 Cor. 4:18) Or, as The Message expresses it, "There's far more here than meets the eye . . ."
Questions for Discussion:
• How much do you attend to the visible realities around you?
• By comparison, how much attention do you give to discerning the evidences of God's supernatural love and power in your life?
