CHAPTER TWELVE
TWO MORE HOPE KILLERS
Myopia and Amnesia
Asaph was bummed out. And it wasn’t just because his parents had given him a weird name. He was disillusioned by the success of the wicked. Everywhere he looked, they were prospering, while everything he touched seemed to be falling apart.
It made no sense.
If being on God’s side meant always losing, why bother?
If the path of righteousness was a path of failure, why take it?
Things got so bad that he almost walked away. But then God showed up. He pointed out something Asaph had failed to see. And once he saw it, everything changed. His anguish suddenly turned into praise.
Years later, he wrote a psalm about it. God liked it so much that he said, “Print it!” Today we know it as Psalm 73.
Asaph’s Myopia
Asaph suffered from spiritual myopia. He could clearly see what was happening right in front of him. But he couldn’t see what God was doing off in the distance.
As a Levite and choir director during the reigns of David and Solomon, Asaph experienced some incredible highs and devastating lows. He saw it all.1 When he wrote Psalm 73 he was reflecting upon a particularly dark season when nothing was going right and the bad guys seemed to be winning.
From his perspective, the wicked were sinning with impunity. They had no conscience, no struggles, and faced no consequences for their actions. All the while, he couldn’t buy a break. Despite keeping a pure heart and clean hands, his life was marked by constant affliction and struggle.
As you can imagine, it wore on him. He eventually became confused and embittered. He began to envy the success and prosperity of the arrogant. He questioned the value of following God.
Then something happened. God showed him far into the future. Asaph went into the sanctuary and for the first time saw with clarity the destiny of the wicked. It didn’t matter how arrogant and successful they might appear to be. They were destined to be destroyed, ruined in the blink of an eye, swept away by terrors.
Suddenly, Asaph changed his tune. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. The wicked were still boastful, crowing with success and mocking God with seeming impunity. But now he realized it wouldn’t be forever.
Asaph suffered from a common spiritual malady. His real-life beliefs didn’t match his theology. He understood God’s goodness and justice theologically. That’s why he started out his psalm (73) with these words: “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” But by his own admission, he no longer believed it in his heart. His spiritual myopia obscured everything except his immediate circumstances.
That’s why he went on to say, “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
The same thing happens to us when we get a bad case of spiritual myopia. We lose perspective. We judge God’s goodness and power by our current reality. When things go great we praise him. When things go poorly we doubt him.
Spiritual myopia is a dangerous spiritual disorder. It causes us to call into question God’s goodness and power. It kills off our hope, confidence, and courage. It produces boatloads of fear, doubt, and despair.
Seeing Clearly
The cure for physical myopia is found in corrective lenses. The cure for spiritual myopia is found in the cross and the empty tomb.
Through the lens of the cross we see the full measure of God’s great love for us. He died for us while we were his enemies, steeped in our own sin and rebellion. He didn’t wait for us to make the first move. He didn’t foresee some great potential and decide, “This one is worth dying for.”
No, it was all grace. It was completely unmerited love. And once that comes into focus, we no longer question his love or goodness. We may question his timing. We may question his methods, but never his love and commitment to our best interests.
Whereas the lens of the cross brings his love and goodness into focus, it’s the lens of the empty tomb that brings his power into sharp relief. Once we fully grasp the implications of Jesus’s absolute victory over death, we no longer question his ability to bring good out of the worst of circumstances and justice out of the greatest of injustices.
Perhaps that’s why the apostle Paul prayed that those of us who follow Jesus would clearly grasp the full implications of the cross and the resurrection. He knew if we saw our life circumstances through the lens of Calvary and the empty tomb, we’d live with renewed confidence and courage.2
Frankly, when it comes to overcoming spiritual myopia we have an advantage over both Asaph and Daniel. Neither of them had a cross or empty tomb to look back upon. Better yet, we have the Holy Spirit within, testifying to God’s love and power.
Spiritual Amnesia
The flipside of spiritual myopia is spiritual amnesia. Whereas myopia fixates on the present, amnesia forgets the past.
The children of Israel suffered from spiritual amnesia big-time. One of their most famous episodes occurred within weeks of being miraculously delivered from centuries of slavery in Egypt.
As they headed off toward their new Promised Land, God instructed them to take a turn and set up camp on the banks of the Red Sea. The place he picked hemmed them in on three sides with water in front of them and mountains to the left and right.
Then God stirred the heart of Pharaoh to set out with his army to recapture the slaves he’d just let go. Trapped against the water and the mountains, the Israelites appeared to be easy prey. When they realized what was happening, they panicked. They cried out to the Lord in despair and accused Moses of bringing them out to the desert to die.3
It never dawned on them that God might be setting up another great miracle or a final judgment upon Pharaoh and his army. They were so dialed in on what God was not doing at the moment that they forgot everything he’d done in the past. It was as if the hard drive of their memories had been wiped clean.
Now it’s easy to rip on their lack of faith and mock their forgetfulness. It’s hard to believe they could panic so quickly after being delivered so powerfully.
But if we’re honest, we’re prone to do the same thing.
Remembering Clearly
Fortunately, there’s a way to lessen the impact of spiritual amnesia. It’s found in practicing the discipline of gratitude, the habit of regularly giving thanks for all God has done.
It’s such a powerful preventive that God actually commands us to give thanks in every circumstance.4 It’s not that God needs the praise. It’s that we need the reminder. A pattern of thanksgiving in every situation ensures we’ll be able to remember in the dark those things we once saw in the light.
Practicing the discipline of gratitude doesn’t mean we’re supposed to artificially find the good in everything. Some things are bad. Some things are evil. Only a fool calls evil good. But in every situation, no matter how bad or evil it might be, there are things in the past and in the future to give thanks for. And it’s in remembering these blessings that we find the courage to endure our present hardships and the evils we face.
Choosing Courage
Unfortunately, when it comes to spiritual myopia and amnesia we can go a long time without realizing that we have a problem. It reminds me of a friend who didn’t realize he was terribly nearsighted until he failed a driver’s license test. He thought everyone had a hard time seeing in the distance. The same with another friend’s mom who thought her memory was just fine, despite the fact that everyone else knew she was losing it fast.
I know some folks who think their fear and angst are appropriate in light of their circumstances. But they’re wrong. The moment our problems seem bigger than our God we are either seeing poorly or remembering inaccurately.5
And at that point we have a choice to make.
We can focus on what’s going wrong or we can fix our thoughts on the cross, the empty tomb, and the plethora of blessings we have to be thankful for. If we do, we’ll end up like Asaph and Daniel—filled with the hope, confidence, and optimism that come from knowing who’s in charge and how everything will end up.
Or we can choose to fixate on the personal and cultural problems that plague us. If we do, we’ll end up like the children of Israel—frustrated, angry, and panicked even when God is about to provide us with a great deliverance.