I Once Was Blind . . .

"So what's my score, Doc?" I asked the optometrist, who was updating the prescription for my trifocals. Smiling, I said, "I know it's not 20-20."

"You're off the charts," the doctor chuckled—and he was hardly exaggerating.

I have worn glasses since I was eight years old. Without corrective lenses, even the big "E" on the eye chart looks blurry to me. I'm so nearsighted that without my glasses, the only way I can read this page is by holding it two inches from my nose.

I wonder what it might have been like if I lived in the days long before Lasik surgery, contact lenses, or ordinary eyeglasses were available. Until about the last hundred years or so, someone like me would have been functionally blind and likely illiterate.

Without glasses, I might not have been able to read and write. I would never have seen the Big Dipper in the sky on a clear summer night, or fully experienced the panoramic view from a mountaintop or a beach.

I wouldn't have seen the twinkle in a comedian's eye just before he delivers the punch line.

I would have missed out on tossing a baseball with my son, and seeing my granddaughter's mischievous smile from across the room.

"Ears that hear and eyes that see—the Lord has made them both" (Proverbs 20:12). The complicated camera we call the human eye is a wonder of design. No mindless quirk of nature could produce the intricate relationship of retina, lens, pupil, and optic nerve.

Awe wells up in my heart when I read in the Bible how Jesus gave sight to the blind—a miracle beyond comprehension, yet the Lord accomplished it with calm simplicity. He healed with a touch, with a word, or even by spitting on the ground and spreading mud on a blind man's eyes. On one occasion Jesus took the unusual step of healing a blind man in stages. At first the man's vision was still blurry and he saw people "like trees walking around" before Jesus completely restored his sight.

After he claimed to be the light of the world, Jesus verified his claim by healing a man who was born sightless. Jealous religious leaders interrogated the formerly blind man and charged him with receiving his healing from a sinner, but the fellow responded with a common sense answer: "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" (John 9:25).

A day is coming when I won't need to wear glasses anymore. On that day every eye will see clearly, and the sights will be more glorious than anything we've ever beheld on earth. A day is coming when all God's people will see his face and fall down in reverence before him.

Until then, I must be grateful for God's every gift, including the ability to taste, touch, hear, smell, and see. Until then, I need to yield my body fully to the Lord's service. Until then, I need to see others the way Jesus sees them—as valued creations of God. Until then, I need to keep growing in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. For if anyone does not have these qualities, "he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins" (2 Peter 1:9).

There are many things I do not know. But I am sure of this: I once was blind, but now I see. And Jesus is the one who opened my eyes.