Whenever I see those commercials touting the ability to order your contact lenses online and get them the next day, I want to laugh. If you can do that, thank your Heavenly Father for the vision you still have and don't complain. Only two labs in the whole world can create the contact lenses I need.
That means an optician is out of the question for me. I need a real doctor to fit my strange little eyeballs. They say I have a 16 eye and a 15 eye. That's shorthand for millimeters, and doesn't take into account the tenths. When they are that size the tenths don't really matter. It's a condition called "nanophthalmos." If you have a normal sized eyeball, it is 26-28 mm. Nanophthalmos begins at 20 mm, and it skews all the formulas and makes every procedure much more difficult and risky the lower that number goes.
Because of all the procedures and surgeries I have had, my eyes no longer have the same, or nearly the same, vision. In the old, pre-surgery days, the corrections in my lenses were +17.25 for the right and +15.50 for the left, a difference of less than 2 points. Once you hit a difference of 4 or more, any sort of correction for both eyes at the same time in a pair of glasses leads to double vision. My eyes are now right at a 4 point difference. I can either wear correction on one eye only, or I can wear contacts, which somehow do not have the same problem as glasses. Of course, I am wearing contacts, the only way to have even halfway normal vision. (Neither eye can be corrected to 20/20.) If I become too old or ill to handle contacts, I will be in a mess as far as my vision goes, assuming I still have it, which is always in question.
Sometimes my vision is a bit off because of the difference. Usually, the brain takes over and the eye that is causing the problem is automatically blocked out. And when I wear OTC reading glasses, that always happens because the lenses are the same correction, meaning one eye can hardly see at all. I suppose it all sounds complicated and aggravating, but I am used to it now and only think about what I can see, not what I cannot see, and thanking God that he has sent me to some amazing doctors.
I am afraid some of us have a spiritual optometrist. We go to him for specialty lenses that we really ought not to wear at all. We talked not long ago about "Super Hero Glasses," the ones that let you look at Bible characters as being far above our abilities and therefore excuse ourselves from even trying to follow their examples. (See post on 4/26/24.) The Jews must have worn those. They prided themselves on being Abraham's children, but never acted like that faithful obedient man themselves (John 8:39). Being his children means acting like him, Jesus reminded them, and then called them children of the Devil instead.
Sometimes we ask for glasses that block out the necessary and keep us distracted with things of this world. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:22-24). Money is just one of those distractions. Add to it things like entertainment, things that are not necessarily sinful but which eat up our time, taking our focus from the spiritual.
And some of us ask for bifocals that see the errors and faults of others, but which, like my brain automatically blocks out the bad, will block out our own faults. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Luke 6:41), Jesus might ask us. And we would have to say that we had those glasses specially made to do just that.
Then there are those who buy the lenses that will strike out any command of Jesus that we find offensive. What did he have to say about that? Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit (Matt 15:12-14). Something we might do well to remember the next time we find a sermon not to our liking. We might manage to get rid of the preacher in our self-serving complaints, but it won't change the result of wearing those types of lenses.
And along those lines, we might ask for lenses that completely block out anything that doesn't suit us, that goes against what we have always believed, or that we cannot seem to comprehend. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him…(John 14:17), and, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains" (John 9:39-41).
I could go on and on because inability to see plain Truth is mentioned again and again as various ones reject Jesus, God, and their messengers. It is so easy to put on those glasses, not corrective lenses, but those that actually inhibit your spiritual eyesight. Do you realize who that optometrist is who is giving you these glasses? It is you. It is me. We create them ourselves, preening in the mirrors to see how they look on us, and what we mistakenly believe they will help us see.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 4:3-6).
Dene Ward
That means an optician is out of the question for me. I need a real doctor to fit my strange little eyeballs. They say I have a 16 eye and a 15 eye. That's shorthand for millimeters, and doesn't take into account the tenths. When they are that size the tenths don't really matter. It's a condition called "nanophthalmos." If you have a normal sized eyeball, it is 26-28 mm. Nanophthalmos begins at 20 mm, and it skews all the formulas and makes every procedure much more difficult and risky the lower that number goes.
Because of all the procedures and surgeries I have had, my eyes no longer have the same, or nearly the same, vision. In the old, pre-surgery days, the corrections in my lenses were +17.25 for the right and +15.50 for the left, a difference of less than 2 points. Once you hit a difference of 4 or more, any sort of correction for both eyes at the same time in a pair of glasses leads to double vision. My eyes are now right at a 4 point difference. I can either wear correction on one eye only, or I can wear contacts, which somehow do not have the same problem as glasses. Of course, I am wearing contacts, the only way to have even halfway normal vision. (Neither eye can be corrected to 20/20.) If I become too old or ill to handle contacts, I will be in a mess as far as my vision goes, assuming I still have it, which is always in question.
Sometimes my vision is a bit off because of the difference. Usually, the brain takes over and the eye that is causing the problem is automatically blocked out. And when I wear OTC reading glasses, that always happens because the lenses are the same correction, meaning one eye can hardly see at all. I suppose it all sounds complicated and aggravating, but I am used to it now and only think about what I can see, not what I cannot see, and thanking God that he has sent me to some amazing doctors.
I am afraid some of us have a spiritual optometrist. We go to him for specialty lenses that we really ought not to wear at all. We talked not long ago about "Super Hero Glasses," the ones that let you look at Bible characters as being far above our abilities and therefore excuse ourselves from even trying to follow their examples. (See post on 4/26/24.) The Jews must have worn those. They prided themselves on being Abraham's children, but never acted like that faithful obedient man themselves (John 8:39). Being his children means acting like him, Jesus reminded them, and then called them children of the Devil instead.
Sometimes we ask for glasses that block out the necessary and keep us distracted with things of this world. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:22-24). Money is just one of those distractions. Add to it things like entertainment, things that are not necessarily sinful but which eat up our time, taking our focus from the spiritual.
And some of us ask for bifocals that see the errors and faults of others, but which, like my brain automatically blocks out the bad, will block out our own faults. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Luke 6:41), Jesus might ask us. And we would have to say that we had those glasses specially made to do just that.
Then there are those who buy the lenses that will strike out any command of Jesus that we find offensive. What did he have to say about that? Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit (Matt 15:12-14). Something we might do well to remember the next time we find a sermon not to our liking. We might manage to get rid of the preacher in our self-serving complaints, but it won't change the result of wearing those types of lenses.
And along those lines, we might ask for lenses that completely block out anything that doesn't suit us, that goes against what we have always believed, or that we cannot seem to comprehend. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him…(John 14:17), and, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains" (John 9:39-41).
I could go on and on because inability to see plain Truth is mentioned again and again as various ones reject Jesus, God, and their messengers. It is so easy to put on those glasses, not corrective lenses, but those that actually inhibit your spiritual eyesight. Do you realize who that optometrist is who is giving you these glasses? It is you. It is me. We create them ourselves, preening in the mirrors to see how they look on us, and what we mistakenly believe they will help us see.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 4:3-6).
Dene Ward
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