See Well Enough

My dream of earning a fighter pilot's wings ended early in life when I began to acquire a bookish demeanor. In other words, I got glasses in the second grade. Back in the day, we didn't have options such as Lasik surgery to correct us near sighted folk. If someone stole my glasses and I was found asking a tree to return them, I failed the initial examination for fighter pilot school long before I even knew that the Air Force had eye exams. There simply was no sense in showing up at the Air Force recruiter's office when my peers knew already that they wouldn't let the four-eyed fellow pilot so much as an unmanned target drone. In college, while our fraternity president was being courted by the Navy to fly fighter planes, I decided to give boxing a try one evening.

A few of my pledge brothers got together in the chapter room and someone found two pair of training gloves. Not wanting to be found wanting in the courage (or foolhardiness) department, I took off my glasses and entered the 'ring' with one of the bigger pledges in my class. One might argue these many years later whether I walked into one, stood still too long, or just didn't see it coming, but one good whack ended my boxing career right on the spot. Baseball offered much the same in the way of humiliation for me. When the coach said to see the spin of the ball as soon as you can, I was found saying "Ball?" Corrective lenses never seemed to do enough and setting them aside was dangerous to my health. What is all this coming clear about my vision all about?

Paul said that all of that does not matter. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said: "For now we see through a glass, darkly..." (13:12a) While some may say that means Paul had poor distance vision too, I tend to think the great apostle was telling us how it is here in this life. Even with the Word of God given to us for reading and study, we see poorly what the Bible tells us. We look around at the world but we don't see as we ought through the darkness of sin. It isn't a good or poor vision thing, it's a curse of sin thing. The prophecy of the end time is called a revelation or an unveiling because we need it to see what is coming. However, even with that we have difficulty understanding or seeing well what we face in the Tribulation. Praise God that my Lord Jesus sees all things. Just one more example of my complete dependence Him!

Bucky