Jesus often uses our blind spots to reveal Himself to us.
I regularly visit Northern Iraq to check on one of the schools where our organization, Love Does, helps young children find safety and a loving environment in a war zone. If you keep up with the news, you know the Middle East is a really rough place with lots of turmoil. Northern Iraq is no different, and we do all we can to help these kids get a different vision for the future of their lives. A couple of terrific organizations and a few families decided to move there and be with these kids and the people in the communities where they serve. I love seeing the kids thrive when just weeks or months earlier they didn’t know where they’d get their next meal or where they’d sleep that night.
With our friends, we run schools for hundreds of kids displaced by the civil wars. We have a hospital, a school with hundreds of Yazidi and refugee kids, and homes we’ve built for refugees from Syria. We’ve met with Peshmerga fighters on the front lines as they battled ISIS soldiers we could see from behind sandbags a short distance away. The name Peshmerga means “the people who confront death.” It’s an apt description of these brave men.
We’ve given these brave Peshmerga fighters medals to let them know how proud we are of them. One time while at the front lines, one of the generals invited us to come into his tent where they had laid out a battle plan for retaking Mosul, a city of two million people. I couldn’t wait to see the detailed maps and plans and satellite images I imagined were inside. Surprisingly, there were none of those. Instead, there was an eight-by-twelve-foot sandbox with some plastic army men, tanks, roads, and small white and black flags on it. I thought there would be more to it.
Here’s the thing: we usually don’t need all the plans we make. Sure, plans can help from time to time, but planning to love people is different than just loving people. For some people, it’s easier to make plans than to make time. If this is you, here’s how to fix it: make love your plan. There’s less to write down that way.
During one of my trips to Northern Iraq, I woke up one morning and couldn’t see out of my right eye. It was weird. I kept moving my hand back and forth covering my left eye first, then my right eye. I rubbed my eyes and shook my head a few times, but it didn’t help. There wasn’t anything there. I could have stared at the sun and not seen a thing. I had five more countries in the Middle East and Asia to be in before returning home, so like a dummy I just kept going, thinking I’d get it sorted out later. No brains, no headache. It was a bad move.
When I got home, I went to see the eye doctor. She’s one of the world’s best and told me I was the stupidest smart guy she’d ever met. I’m sure she was overstating it, and I was probably only tied for last. I had already decided if I’d done so much damage that I needed a fake eye, I’d want to get an assortment to pick from. I wanted one with a laser in it, like the guy in The Terminator, and also one that was a hairy eyeball I could slip into place for anyone who really irritated me.
They’ve done quite a few operations on my eye since I had my problem. Before every operation, I always ask my eye doctor how much I’ll be able to see afterward. You know what? She’s never told me. Instead, each time she just says, “Bob, you’re going to see more.” At first I felt like she was dodging the question. I was looking for a prognosis for my eye, but she gave me something far better. I got a promise from someone I could trust and a reminder about my life. It’s the same promise God gives us every day. We want God to tell us all the details, but all we usually get is a promise that we’ll see more of Him if we look in the right places. This doctor knows what she’s doing. She practically invented eyes. Jesus knows what He’s doing, too, and He did invent eyes. Because I trust both of them, I’m okay with the promise I’ll see more.
We’ll see what we spend the most time looking for.
My eyesight is slowly coming back. It will no doubt take some time to be fully restored. I’m not sure how much sight I’ll get back and how long it will last. I’ve only had a half-dozen operations so far. I’m going for a world record. While I wait, I’ve already seen what Jesus and the doctor said would come true, even if my eyesight isn’t fully restored yet. I’m seeing more.
There have been more than a couple of benefits of missing sight in one eye. For instance, I know where my blind spot is. It’s half. Right-hand turns at intersections these days are spotty at best. It’s like playing rock-paper-scissors. I usually just roll down my windows and yell, “Coming through!” Then I hit the gas.
When I read the stories in the Bible about the blind people Jesus met, I can identify with them a little more. The one I probably relate to the most is the guy who got his sight healed twice. After Jesus touched this guy the first time, He asked him what he could see. The man told Jesus, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Jesus touched his eyes a second time, and it was only after the second touch that he could see things the way they really were. First touches, like first impressions, are great, but I think a lot of us need a second touch.
There are quite a few people who may have bumped into Jesus along the way, but it didn’t stick the first time. It’s not a failed attempt when it happens, just like Jesus didn’t mess up the miracle the first time He touched the guy’s eyes. God wants us to be real with Him about the effect He’s had in our lives. I’ll level with you: if I were the blind guy in the story, I would have been tempted to lie to Jesus after the first touch and tell Him I was healed. You know, just so Jesus wouldn’t look bad. But what Jesus is looking for are honest answers about what’s really going on in our lives, not a bunch of spin. The reason is simple. If the guy without sight had faked it and said he could see everything just fine after the first touch, he wouldn’t have been actually healed.
The truth is, we don’t really know why Jesus touched this man’s eyes twice. I think some of the miracles God does in our lives happen in stages. Even though we’ve been touched by God, we still don’t see people for who they are until something more happens in us. It’s not trees we confuse them for; it’s opinions and positions, social issues and status, titles and accomplishments and behaviors.
Having a problem with my eye has helped me understand Jesus a little better in other ways. I’ve been asking Him to help me see and know more about the things I don’t understand in my life and the lives of other people. Most of the time, I receive an indirect answer or no answer at all. Some people explained to me early on about how not getting an answer from God really is an answer. I suppose they could be right, but honestly, I never really bought it. If I sent someone a letter and didn’t get an answer, I’d wonder if they really got it. Sometimes when we ask for an answer, God sends us a companion. They often come in blue jeans, but they could also be wearing a stethoscope and a white doctor’s coat.
Because I trust Jesus even more than I trust the eye doctor, I’m becoming more comfortable with the promise from God that I’m going to see more. Even if it takes a couple more touches. A small but important change these days is that I assume everyone can see more than I can, and I’m usually right. Maybe I won’t see as much as I’d like to see right now, but I’m okay with knowing I’ll see more. It gives me something to look forward to.
Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus—or your one eye, if you don’t have two that work. He sees who we’re becoming, and He wants us to become love.
I have a friend named Lex. He has the same problem in both of his eyes that I have in one of mine. After ten failed operations, he lost his eyesight completely when he was eight years old. In high school Lex began to compete in track-and-field events. By the time he got to college, he figured out he could run like the wind. So he went out for the track team. My first thought was, How can a blind guy run track? Then I found out Lex has a friend. His friend runs in front of Lex and calls his name. Lex just runs toward a voice he knows he can trust.
Everyone who runs track-and-field picks an event. Lex picked the long jump. This still makes my head spin. If you’re not familiar with this event, you run as fast as you can down a three-foot-wide track from a position more than one hundred feet away. With your last step, you launch into the air as high as you can from a wooden board in the track and land as far away as you can in a sand pit. Impossible for a blind guy, right? Not for Lex. Do you know why? He’s got a friend whose voice he knows he can trust.
What Lex does is both simple and impossible at the same time. When it’s his turn to compete, his friend squares Lex’s shoulders to the sand pit down the track, then goes to the edge of the pit and starts yelling, “Fly! Fly! Fly!” over and over. Lex runs toward his friend’s voice as fast as he can and then jumps as far as he’s able.
Get this: Lex went out for the US Paralympic team—and he made it. He can jump farther than just about anyone in the world. Here’s the reason why: people who are becoming love try impossible things because they’ve surrounded themselves with voices they can trust.
At the World Championships, Lex’s friend took him to the far end of the narrow track. He squared Lex’s shoulders and walked back to the edge of the sand pit. Then he started calling, “Fly! Fly! Fly!” to Lex. Because Lex is blind, he doesn’t always run in a straight line. The louder his friend called out to Lex, the more Lex wandered. When Lex got to the end of the track, he leaped into the air with everything he had. The problem? His path had wandered, and he launched crooked. Everyone in the stadium gasped. Lex missed the sandpit entirely and crashed and burned on the concrete. Lex’s friend put his hands over his head in disbelief at what had just happened as he ran to his friend’s side. Lex was badly bruised, his track uniform was ripped, and he was helped off the field for medical attention.
We’re all a little blind and have a tendency to wander. Sometimes we know what caused us to stop running in a straight line, and other times we don’t. We crash and burn and usually don’t know what happened. It’s what happens next that will tell a lot about who we’re becoming.
I’m no athlete, but if I were Lex, I would have been tempted to quit. I would have thought about how unfair my life was. I’d complain to myself about how I’d jumped far and hit hard. I might be afraid if it happened once, it might happen again. These are the voices of defeat each of us hears at some point. If we let them, these dissonant voices can drown out the voices we’ve come to trust in our lives. Lex doesn’t see the world this way. His faith doesn’t just inform his heart; it informs his whole life.
Lex’s friend got him a new uniform so he didn’t moon everyone, and Lex walked back onto the field to thunderous applause. Together, they walked to the end of the narrow runway. There’s a saying in track: “Last one, best one.” His friend squared Lex’s shoulders and his feet once again, walked to the edge of the sand pit, and called, “Fly! Fly! Fly!” as he clapped faster and faster. When Lex hit the board on his sixteenth step, he leaped into the air like a gazelle. When he hit the sand more than twenty-one feet later, he won the whole competition. Sure, he’d strayed a little from the path before. He’d even crashed the last time he’d tried, but Lex doesn’t let fear call the shots in his life, and we shouldn’t either.
We’ve all jumped for something we couldn’t see. A relationship, a career, even our faith. We’ve all been beat up too. We’ve jumped big and missed even bigger. We aim for the soft sand but hit the hard stuff. Here’s the thing: God doesn’t like us more when we succeed or less when we fail. He delights in our attempts. He gave each of us different abilities too. I can’t jump over a street curb. Lex can leap over a Buick.
I’m not trying to be Lex, and he isn’t interested in being me. One thing we do have in common is having a couple of good friends. These friends of ours don’t need to give us a lot of instruction either. They just call our names. The promise Jesus made to His friends was simply this: He promised to be a voice they could trust. All He asked His friends to do was to run toward it.
Jesus talked about sheep and shepherds a lot. I’ve had a couple of dogs. I’ve even briefly had a parakeet and a turtle. But I could never really relate when Jesus talked about what it’s like to have a lot of sheep. He said sheep can recognize the shepherd’s voice because it’s a voice they’ve come to trust. I think I understand a little more now what He was saying.
God doesn’t just give us Himself. Sometimes He gives us a few other people in our lives whose voices we can trust. Figure out what Jesus’ voice sounds like in your life. He’s standing at the end of the track calling your name. Run as fast as you can in His direction.
I had Lex come and speak to a university class I teach. Hundreds of students sat spellbound as Lex spoke to them for an hour. There was a grand piano on the stage, and he even laid down a song I’m still humming. It turns out the guy has some pretty strong vocal pipes too. When class was over, we got in my car and made the forty-five-minute drive back to the Olympic training center. When I turned on my blinker to make a right turn, Lex leaned over and said, “Bob, it’s the next street.” I just about swerved off the road. “What?” I asked in amazement. Here’s the crazy part: he was right.
“How did you know that?” I asked him, still stunned as I made the next right.
“I keep track of where I am. It helps me find what I need,” he said confidently.
I’ve got a lot to learn from Lex. I have plenty of sight and use very little of it. He has none and somehow sees more than a dozen optometrists can. I wonder if the Bible has so many stories about blind people because many of them are in touch with where they are and what they need. Oftentimes I’m not. I’m learning from Lex the power of keeping track of where I am, figuring out what I need and listening for voices I can trust.
As we drove down the correct road, Lex asked, “Do you want me to blow your mind?”
“Buddy, it’s already blown. There’s nothing left,” I said, shaking my head.
“There’s a speed bump in thirty feet.” A few moments later, both sets of tires bounced over the bump in the road.
We’ve all heard the term blind faith. I didn’t understand what it really meant until I met Lex. He’s the wise man who told me, “It’s not what you look at; it’s what you see.” I agree.
Keep running your race. Is it going to be easy? Heck, no. You might even question a couple of times if it’s worth it. Jesus is standing at the edge of eternity calling your name. He wants you to run toward Him as fast as your legs will carry you. He knows you can’t always see what is before you, and He wants you to forget what lies behind you. Fly! Fly! Fly! His voice is one you can trust. He wants you to run big and jump far.
Last one, best one.