Growing older is filled with changes and adjustments. One of those adjustments for me is having to deal with not being able to see as clearly as I used to. I remember the days not so many years ago when I would go into homes as a hospice chaplain and read to patients from my very small Bible. On an occasion or two, those whom I was visiting would make remarks about how I could see such small print. I did not appreciate at the time what a wonderful thing it was to be able to see that well without glasses!

If you see Gale and me out and about, you will likely see us passing the reading glasses back and forth to read labels on packages, to sign documents or to read the latest text message that we received. At least I am not alone on this adventure!

Sometimes it amazes me when I put my glasses on when I realize what I have been missing—those pants that I thought were lint free are not, that spatter of toothpaste that I thought missed my shirt did not, and that screw that had no head suddenly has a very visible one.

As important as it is to see clearly physically, spiritual vision is far more essential.

Ezekiel, one of the Old Testament prophets among the Jewish exiles that had been taken from Jerusalem to Babylon, was enabled by the Spirit of God to see things that he never could have beheld through his natural eyes. The Spirit allowed him to see the detestable unfaithfulness against God that was taking place back in his homeland that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the holy city and the destruction of God’s temple. After a series of visions, Ezekiel 8:18 sums up the prophet’s experience with God’s response: “Therefore I will deal with them in anger;

will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in My ears, I will not listen to them” (NIV).

The people in Jerusalem had been given fair warning by the prophet Jeremiah and others, but they failed to heed the warning and continued in their shameful ways. They refused to see what God wanted them to see about their sinful practices; their stubborn hardheartedness led to tragic punishment as God permitted them to be overrun by the Babylonians.

We need to be very careful to see what God wants us to see about our lives and our relationship with Him. Just as physical vision degrades slowly over time, when we begin to become insensitive to God in small ways we can, little by little, drift far from Him without seeing what is transpiring. It should be our desire to see clearly spiritually and to take the proper steps to correct what God reveals to us that is wrong in our lives.

The words of Christ spoken to the Church in Laodicea are powerfully fitting for us today: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Revelation 3:18).