Seeing

Matthew 13:16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

“Did you see that?” The natural instinct is to speak, to share, to confirm, what you see. That is the natural instinct in the natural setting. But what about spiritual matters? When you see something with you spiritual eyes, do you treat it the same as seeing something in the natural?

Consider this if you would please, Jesus declares you have both eyes to see and ears to hear. Why do you react to spiritual matters as if you only see? Why react at all until you have used your spiritual ears also? Faith comes by hearing. Faith is a knowing and to see without hearing, to see without faith is to see without understanding.

There was a time that I would see a spiritual thing and share it with everyone until it had been shared with God’s intended target. I had not the maturity at that time to understand how to use my gifts. It seemed harmless, eventually God’s message got to its target. But what about the people who were asked “Do you see that?” I never considered the impact that my words might have on their faith life.

It took me years to understand that God does all things with purpose, with order, with a touch of grace.

Matthew 9:30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it.

And what did they do?

Vs. 31 But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.

They disobeyed Jesus. We will never get to see the results of obeying Him in this. This is an opportunity missed because they took a spiritual event and treated it as a natural event. They cut off the blessing that could have followed and we will never know what that could have been.

It is far better to see and hear than to merely see. Don’t you see?

Will

Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Years ago I was struck by a comment made by a sister in Christ that God’s will might not be just one thing. It reminded me of a previous encounter with a dedicated follower who had said he was passing up an opportunity in favor of waiting on God’s perfect will. Both had a vision of God’s will in their lives as being fluid, changing, building up like a wave headed for shore..

I had that thought trapped in my mind until this morning as I lay awake at 2 a.m. trying to get back to sleep. I’ve made two tries now in a work that is due October 2nd. I am still not satisfied, it isn’t perfect. As I said those words to myself I saw the connective passage that lead my brother and sister in Christ to focus on God’s will and see it as shifting. The answer was there all the time.

I am transformed. I no longer settle for good. I no longer settle for acceptable. I now strive for perfect. God’s will has not changed, I have. When we strive to seek God’s will in our lives we often focus so strongly on the will, that we might know it and walk in it, that we lose focus on the proof.

Have I settled for good enough? Has my seeking been superficial, skimming of His Word and not letting it sink into my mind? Have I seen myself as accepted and settled on the praise of men as having found His will? Or have I allowed the Word to transform me to a point where nothing less than God being glorified is satisfying?

God’s will does not change, we do.