Opened Eyes

Several years ago a friend of mine named Cindy came to our offices at Herald of Truth to record a program. She had an amazing testimony that I felt needed to be recorded and then shared with our respondents.

After one recording session she turned to me and said, “Jim, I really think you need to read the book, Grace Works by Dudley Hall. I resisted her suggestion at first, feeling that she was suggesting that perhaps I was a bit legalistic. So quite frankly, I avoided buying that book for a few years.

Then a couple weeks ago I was looking for a few books on prayer to give away at a class I was about to teach. And there on the shelf was Grace Works – and it seemed like the time had come for me to read it.

Last night I was reading one chapter of this book and came across a page that turned on all sorts of lights deep in my soul. It’s worth the price of the book. Hall describes the scene in John 9, the story of Jesus healing the man blind from birth. Of course, the healing is a metaphor for spiritual blindness. Hall then turns to the reader and suggests ways that we can be spiritual blind. Here’s one amazing quote:

Rather than risk a confrontation with God, they (the Pharisees) chose to stay behind a veil, relying on intermediaries such as Moses to interpret God for them. They were choosing their blindness.

And many of us today choose our blindness as well. We’ve elected to put up a veil that limits our understanding of what God says. We’ve relied on a denomination or a particular preacher or a particular doctrine to define for us the reality of God. We have reduced him to a system of theology and have tried to capture him in the limited understanding of the human mind. But God will not be captured like that. He refuses to be contained in our theological boxes. He refuses to fit our denominational definitions.

Then Hall reminds us to not come down so hard on Pharisees, because “it is very difficult for any of us to lay aside our previous perceptions of who God is and how he works and take on broader revelation. Doing that means – at least for a time – becoming vulnerable and insecure. …Jesus really did come to give sight to the blind, and he was not just talking about the physically blind. Spiritual eyesight is a gift that comes through the grace of God. It is your inheritance as a faith-person. Believe it and see!”

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Walk to Emmaus was such a life-shaping, soul-altering experience. And it wasn’t all easy. It was painful, too. I can remember sitting in a chapel late one Friday night, having been confronted with the reality of Jesus Christ – and feeling scared. Having my beliefs from my own denomination challenged. In Hall’s words, I felt “vulnerable and insecure.” And at that point I realized I had no one to turn to but Jesus. To trust Him in childlike faith. To let go of my preconceived ideas of other believers’ doctrines and their spiritual state. I needed to surrender to Jesus and let go of trying to be in control. It was pride-shattering…and yet soul-freeing. Jesus was healing my spiritual myopia. And His grace and love helped me see – see Him as the very center of my faith, and see others in the body of Christ through whom He was working in very powerful ways.

In His tender way, Jesus was showing me how grace works. And He is still doing it each day.

Lord God, please continue to open our eyes. Give us humility of heart to realize that we have not arrived. And grant us a deeper revelation of Yourself. Open our eyes, we pray, that we may see Jesus. Amen.

Jim