Eyes that Do Not See (9/26/2023)

Yesterday I was returning from a visit to Iowa to see my family there. It is a long trip (420 miles). I break it up with stops at Kwik Trip along the way and purchases of my favorite tea, Nature’s Touch Peach Tea. I grew up in Georgia, if you recall, and anything flavored like peaches gets my vote. Anyway, I went into the convenience store, to the refrigerated drink section and found the Nature’s Touch products. There was pomegranate tea, raspberry tea, peach lemonade, sweet tea, unsweetened tea, but as I read the labels, there was no peach tea. I began talking to myself. “Why would they not stock peach tea? Did they discontinue that flavor? Why would they do that? It is the best flavor?” Just as I was about to have a mild meltdown in the refrigerated drink aisle, I spotted it. Nature’s Touch Peach Tea in a bottle with a totally different looking label. It was there all along. I just couldn’t see it because it wasn’t what I was looking for at that time, it wasn’t what I expected.

I will admit that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. It happens every time the grocery store changes the location of things, and it happens every time a familiar label is changed. I can’t find what I am looking for because either it isn’t where I expected it or it doesn’t look like what I expect it to look. I have eyes, and while they are getting older and dimmer, it isn’t my clarity of acuity of sight that is off. No, it’s my ability to see what I am not expecting to see.

I thought about that yesterday as I drove the rest of the way home. I think our world is having a vision crisis like mine in Kwik Trip. It isn’t that the LORD isn’t powerful and present in our world. It is that it doesn’t look like what we expect it to look. We have eyes, but they aren’t seeing.

Would I have recognized Jesus as the Messiah if I had lived in Judah in the first century? Would I have accepted Him as the Messiah, the promised savior, who wasn’t royal but from the home of a lowly carpenter? Would I have believed that the one who died on a cross on Calvary Friday came to the upper room and visited the apostles and disciples Sunday evening if I hadn’t seen it myself? Or would I have been like Thomas demanding to see it for myself?

And even if I had seen it myself, even if I had touched Christ’s wounds myself, would I have accepted that He is the Son of God and embraced Him as “the way and the truth and the life” considering how different it was from what I expected salvation for me and others to look like? Would I suffer from a lack of faith because of my lack of vision?

How about today? I must admit that there is much that isn’t “right” in our world. But the LORD promises to be with us always; He is here. Do I see Him? Where? What is He doing?

The LORD gifts us for the challenges. This week as the colors begin to change and we recognize the seasons and a universe bigger than us, let us look for the signs of the LORD’s power and presence at work. This week as we see and hear the list of things that are not right in our world, can we see past them to what the LORD is doing, perhaps in us, perhaps through us?

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.