As we grow older in the Lord, our tabernacle also begins to show a little wear and tear. Last summer I dealt with a little repair work and had cataract surgery. I was a little hesitant in having someone work on my eyes but, after talking to several folks who had it done, I decided to go ahead. Wow! I am seeing 20/20 again and the vivid colors are amazing. So, you ask, what brought that up?
Well, that’s the same thing I asked the Lord when He brought it up in the middle of my time with him last week.
He reminded me that sin in our life is also blinding, and it can be just as subtle as the advancing of cataracts in our eyes. Just like the cataract impedes our ability to see clearly with a slow clouding over of our lens, sin has the same effect in the life of a believer. It destroys our spiritual discernment, that enables us to see all the various shades of meaning in a spiritual problem. It brings about a dullness in our spiritual thinking that makes our discernment fuzzy and out of focus. All the various shades of thinking that give us the true meaning become like color blindness. We act when we shouldn’t and fail to act when we should. We get active when we should be still and vice versa.
Well, thank God that spiritual cataracts, unlike physical cataracts, can’t cause us to lose our sight. Once the Holy Spirit has given us “true” vision, it cannot be lost. Our salvation is secure in Christ, but our spiritual condition can become clouded. And while I had to have surgery, along with all that goes before and after, to restore my eyesight, our spiritual cataracts can be removed in an instant when we are willing to submit to our resident surgeon, the Holy Spirit.