“Willful Blindness”
My wife has been good for me, in that I miss a lot of things that she sees. She cut an article out of the paper a number of years ago, the title was “Enjoying the trip”, and you know, I didn’t want to stop and read it but she insisted, so I read it grudgingly. It talked about a man like me, going on a trip that saw the beginning, the end and little between. A hurry up and get there blinded me to all the things in between. Did you see that, she would say? See what? I would say. When young in school, I wanted to hurry up and get home to play or build something. At work, I wanted to hurry home to do something else. When I got there, I wanted to do a different thing. I took my wife to work one day and she pointed out all the many things she had seen and where she had seen them, many plants, ferns, rocks, where she had seen a deer, bear, birds, and a fox and so on. All the things I love, but I had only seen a fraction of those things. A few years ago while deer hunting, one came out in the field, I aimed and shot too quickly and missed. I was in a hurry and didn’t take time to aim properly. A microscope is an instrument that lets us focus on objects that we could not normally see. The Holy Spirit is our microscope, in that he helps us focus on things we would never see. In my fast paced lifestyle, bouncing from one thing to another, I was missing the in-betweens. The willfully blind are not good listeners either by the way. And I might add, not a good conversationalist.
When I was young, my grandfather had a mule named Jackson. He would put blinders on him when plowing the field so he would not be distracted from things on both sides and plow the rows crooked. He wanted Jackson to only see where he was going, not the in-betweens on both sides of him. Mules with blinders only see where they are going and not much else.
So I found myself in many things, willfully deaf, dumb and blind of the in-betweens. Now some of us don’t have this issue, but some do, so this is to the does.
Remember the old railroad sign? “Stop, Look and Listen”. This was about focusing on what we see and what we hear. The result could be devastating if not heeded. The first instruction was, to stop.
The Bible is a record of God’s own words. It has a beginning and an end, most importantly an in-between. When Jesus talked to people, He told interesting parables with the purpose of causing us to focus, thus seeing a picture of the truth of the matter. A story has a starting point, an in-between and an ending. He wants us to see it all, not just part of it. Our life is given by God Himself. It had a starting place here on earth and, before we go to him, enjoy the in-betweens.
“A Voice From The Mountain”
David McClary
