Perfect Vision
When I turned forty, it was as if a light switch was flipped off. I went from having 20/20 vision to not being able to read things, seeing fuzzy, and needing to ask what the score of the game was, all seemingly overnight. I only can remember ever being at an eye doctor one time in my whole life, and that was when I was probably ten years old or so. Why go if you can see perfect, right? Needless to say, when my forty-year-old eyes found themselves squinting, everything I faced about eye care was new to me.
My first visit to the eye doctor as an adult reinforced what I already knew was coming. I needed glasses. After getting my prescription, and fitted with a pair of black frames, I was terribly self-conscious about how I looked in them. I opted to also be fitted for contacts, as I felt much more comfortable around other people. I not only wasn’t embarrassed, but I felt more like myself.
Silly, I know. It didn’t take long to realize that the need to see would override any funny feelings about what I looked like while wearing my glasses. I began to wear them more often; my confidence in them improved with time. Today I don’t mind them at all. In fact, my wife thinks I look distinguished in them. My only problem with them now is seeing through the fingerprints that three-year old kiddos love to smudge them up with. I think God’s sense of humor has created a magnetic pull and attraction from children’s fingertips to the lenses we try to desperately to keep clean.
The point being, my aging vision was effectively corrected when someone greater than myself came to my aid, giving me the prescription that I needed.
Let me switch gears.
Ever have one of those weeks when no matter how hard you try to make forward progress the enemy is trying even harder to pull you back?
To have your eyes opened, especially by the Lord, is something priceless. It happened to me the other day. So many times in our lives, even as born again Christians, we are unaware to the spiritual realities going on around us. Our physical flesh and bone limits us to the truth of the matter in spiritual terms. We have hard days, sometimes hard weeks, and wonder what on earth is going on. We try to do things right, yet it seems like we beat our heads against the wall in a struggle going nowhere.
That is when God reminds us of a firefly.
My wife and I recently were sore pressed in a spiritual battle that only could be won by prayer. We had received a letter with some disturbing news, compiling struggle to an ongoing unfortunate situation we are facing. We needed God to stand up for us, and in that, stand up big time. We needed deliverance from our adversary. We needed vindication. We needed freed. We were faced with a situation that we were powerless to overcome ourselves, and due to stress, we needed to get out of the house and go on a walk.
Sound familiar? We all find ourselves in hard moments, struggling times.
Since we didn’t quite know what to do, we decided to make best use of our evening stroll, and our frazzled minds and worship while we walked. We played a live version of Great Are You Lord featuring Matt Redman and worshipped while we walked. Something inside me was reminded of the times in the Bible when those that were distressed went up on a mountain to be one-on-one with God. Moses went up Mt. Sinai. Even Jesus went up several times in scripture on a mountain to pray (Matthew 14:23). So, we walked in the direction of the closest, biggest hill. When we got to the top, we laid the letter before God (much like Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19:14).
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.
At the top of that hill, we prayed our hearts out. I prayed first. My wife followed. When she was praying, I asked the Lord to open our eyes, that we could see that there was more standing with us than against us. I wanted our eyes to be opened so that we would be strengthened. If we could see those fighting in the heavenlies on our behalf, we could gain courage to continue through our current struggle. We knew that we don’t fight against flesh and blood, but against those evil forces that strive to knock us down and beat us up in the Christian walk (Ephesians 6:12). I was hoping God would answer my prayer; I was reminded of Elisha in 2 Kings 6:15.
When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”
Isn’t that what we all ask in the moment of dire need? When we are in the hottest part of the flame, the most intense moment of our struggles, we automatically fall back to that one question. What are we going to do? We fear. We panic. We question God and our own motives. We search for reasons of our struggles. We sometimes distance ourselves from others, even close relationships such as spouses or best friends. Ultimately, we ask that one simple phrase, that enormous, gigantic question.
On the hilltop that night, we didn’t know what to do either. We laid our problem at Jesus’ feet. It was all we could do. We were powerless to defend ourselves.
I hoped for a spiritual epiphany, that our eyes would be opened to the spiritual world, that I would be able to see the angels fighting in the heavenlies on our behalf, the hand of God sending help to defend us.
Nothing.
We prayed so long that it got dark on us.
Walking home in the country is different than the city. When you live in the city and it gets dark, there are plenty of streetlights to keep your path lit. When you are over a mile away from home in the country and it gets dark on you, it is dark- really dark. There was no moonlight; the moon had not come up yet. We were beginning to get nervous that we were going to get run over by a car if one came by, so we decided we better get moving.
We started walking home in the black of night.
Unexpectedly, we noticed the most incredible display of fireflies that I had ever seen. The countryside had no light pollution to steal the show or take away from the spectacular performance of flickering flashes we were watching. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe more, brilliant bulbs of natural light flashed before us. The flashing lights surrounded us. It was displaying awe from every side. We couldn’t walk anywhere in which to escape it. The display of a dazzling light show was absolutely stunning, unbelievable, an experience I will never forget. I had never seen so many fireflies.
The Lord stopped me cold in my tracks.
He whispered to my spirit that it is exactly the same.
I was absolutely blown away; I could not contain the word the Lord had just spoken to me.
2 Kings 6:16,17
He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Everywhere we went, the entire way home, everywhere we looked… fireflies flashed their bright signals of salvation.
Stunning.
Sometimes God answers prayers in ways you don’t expect. In the black of night God opened our eyes, wide and clear. Ironically, we now could see clearer with no light than before the sun went down. With the knowledge that “those who are with us are more than those with them,” we watched the battle in the heavenlies that was surrounding us. We watched as flashes of light symbolized the clashing of swords, angelic vs. demonic confrontations, the war for our souls and lives that dueled from every side. We watched the presence of light in the darkness, the prolific existence of those that the Lord has stationed around us to defend and disarm the enemy.
We were not alone.
Neither are you.
My challenge today, is to let God work in your situation the same. Lay your problems down. If you have received bad news, take it to the alter of God and leave it there for God to read. Tell God your troubles. Offer them in his presence. Ask God to fight your battles. Confess to him that you aren’t strong enough.
Then, when the fireflies begin, you will have perfect vision too.
By Chuck Carr