Seeing Through a Glass Smearily

Our grandson, Colin, LOVES to play with my glasses. He is fascinated that my eyes hide behind the clear plastic lenses. He will say “eyes” and reach and touch the glasses. Then he giggles, says “eyes” again and touches the lenses.

When I take the glasses off he peers at the lenses, then looks at my eyes, says “eyes”, touches my face then giggles, reaching for the glasses, wanting me to put them back on. I do and he says “eyes” again and touches the lenses.

We can repeat this scenario multiple times during the day. Needless to say, if I don’t clean my glasses after each encounter with a sticky-fingered 18-month-old, they get quite smeary.

Since my lenses are a hard plastic, I am careful when I clean them - past experience has taught me that they can get scratched.

When we are with our grandchildren for a day, or (in rare, but wonderful) several days, my glasses can get to the point of being almost “foggy”.

Recently we were with our grandchildren for a full day, leaving their house around 7 pm in order to get home by 9 pm, and soon after, to bed.

I did not take the time to clean my glasses before we left and went to bed without cleaning them. When I got up in the morning to have coffee with Bill, I realized that I was seeing the world through “a glass smearily”.

In the King James version of the Bible Paul says in I Corinthians 13, verse 12, “now we see through a glass darkly…” I like the way the Message puts it: “We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”

As human beings, and as Christians, we seem to often be seeing things through “a glass smearily”.

The window panes of our lives are often so fogged up with our prejudices, the lenses of our spiritual eyes are often myopic with our narrow viewpoints, that we are unable to see things clearly.

I suspect that nearly everyone reading this has at some point made a judgment about someone before we really knew the facts. I am fairly certain that most of us have judged a situation without making an attempt to see it from someone else’s point of view.

Often, I suspect, our view of life is smeary without us even realizing that “our glasses need to be cleaned”.

Along the path that God has led Bill and me, we have had the privilege of being associated with at least a dozen or so different denominations, and have friends in several additional groups. When God first moved me outside the “box” of my childhood I was very judgmental of others because they didn’t see spiritual life exactly as I did.

God has had to “clean my glasses” numerous times to help me see others more clearly. In the last dozen or so years I have finally come to appreciate the viewpoint of other people on their own faith-journey whose background is different, but no less valid, than my own.

Every time I “see” God from someone else’s viewpoint, I have seen yet a little more of His glory, a little more of His vastness, a little more of His deep love for ALL of us humankind.

Every time I make an effort to “see” someone’s situation BEFORE I make a judgment about their behavior (reaction) I more clearly “see” their pain, their wounding, their struggle to … And every time I allow God to “clean my glasses” to see that other person I see more clearly not just how much He loves them, but how much He loves me.

Being an active part of God’s family is so simple: Love God with our entire being, Love our neighbor as ourselves. So simple; and the hardest thing He could ever ask us to do. But it is so much easier when we allow Him to “clean our glasses”, when we begin to see Him, our world, our neighbors through spiritual lenses that are no longer smeary.