21st October - Blurred Vision

Blurred Vision

Written by Julie Craig

Wearing a mask and goggles has become part of daily life for me over the past few months. Sometimes I practically forget that I’m wearing them, but then every now and again something happens that that reminds me they’re there. And if you’re used to wearing glasses I’m sure you’ll recognise the feeling of taking your glasses off and realising just how dirty they are.

 

It can get a bit difficult when I’m trying to speak to patients as it’s hard for me to make out what they’re saying and hard to see out of my smudged and steamed-up goggles, and I’m sure it’s hard for them to make out what I’m saying.

 

But it did remind me of something that the Christian author Chip Ingram described when he talked about how we look at things through a warped mirror. You know the kind of mirror that I mean, one of those fairground ones that makes everything look out of shape, and depending on what way you look at it, it’ll make things look wonky in some different way. Everything you see in the reflection is warped and distorted and just wrong, and if you move around a bit you just see some other image which is also just weird in some other way.

 

The point is, that we often see things wrongly, like we’re looking at a reflection in a warped mirror. It’s very easy to get a wrong impression of ourselves, and I don’t just mean how people think they’re more chubby than they actually are. 

 

We can have a really wrong view of how God sees us. 

 

He doesn’t focus on all our flaws and imperfections. He sees us as the perfect creation that he tailor-made to live our life in our town starting on our birthday. 

 

And, we can have the wrong view of God too, as if he’s some car parking officer always watching out for when we get something wrong so he can hit us with some punishment. 

 

The whole point of the bible, if you read it thoroughly, is that God does see our failings, again and again, but he loves us so much that he had a massive once-and-for-all wipe-out of all the punishment we were due, when Jesus died instead. 

 

On the many occasions when I’ve taken off my smudged goggles and given them a clean I see how things really are. 

 

It’s very easy for us to have a blurry inaccurate view of ourselves, and of God, and of how God sees us, and of others, and of how others see us, and there are lots of things that can really blur our view. 

 

The thing that I find really ironic is that most of the smudges that make me unable to see out of my goggles are my own make-up and mascara rubbing off on them, which is crazy because I put that stuff on my face in the first place and now it’s blocking my view, plus nobody can see my face, so it’s totally pointless. 

 

But how many times have we been responsible for the things that are giving us the wrong picture, and how often are those things unnecessary. Trying to keep up with the latest fashion craze, or pop music release, or keeping our snapchat going, or knowing the entire spec to the new luxury car range, or joining in with the smutty jokes or hurtful cheap shots at others just so we can feel like we’re in with the crowd, or doing stuff that you feel you have to in order to fit in even though you know your parents who love you would be worried sick if they knew. 

 

All that stuff knocks off our focus, pulls us away from where our thoughts and our free-time should be, and makes us look at everything from this wonky perspective, and  in the big picture, those things don’t even really count, but we pick to have them in our lives just like I keep putting on this mascara that nobody can really see and just turns into a big blob in front of my eyes.

 

So take a minute to think about what’s getting in the way of you seeing God for who he really is, or seeing yourself with the product spec that God built you with. 

 

Get some clear vision, because it’s only when you realise how much mess is blocking your view that you can deal with it, & see what’s really there. 

 

See you soon