Through the miracle of the lens, what is normally fuzzy becomes clear to the eyes. X-ray machines allow us to peer into the body in order to see the skeleton and other structures deep within. Special compounds applied to a surface, combined with special glasses placed over the eyes, permit crime investigators to see blood that is otherwise invisible. Fabricators use a certain chemical and a dedicated machine to allow them to detect fine cracks that could not be spotted with the naked eye.
Vision, you see, is relative: one sees according to what one is looking for. Criminal investigators and metal workers seek different ends, so they use different techniques in their work. It’s still vision, it’s still seeing something, but each one has their own agenda, their own particular end in mind. Normal folk do the same thing without using actual glasses, goggles or other vision assistance devices. Instead we use the filters within our own minds to pick and choose how and what we see.
Those filters are determined according to our personalities and our situation. The abused woman will look at a man differently from a member of the Masons. Principals and students have a polar opposite view of teachers. Dentists are seen as a person to fear by many folks, while vendors of dental supplies see them as a vital part of their business. It all depends on your point of view, on who you are, and who you’re dealing with. You can overlook a lot of faults in a beloved friend. That’s not necessarily the case when it’s someone who has a track record of hurting you.
God is the only one who sees us clearly all the time. His vision is perfect and perfectly unbiased. There are no favourites in His eyes, no one that is viewed as being a better or more desirable person. Instead He sees us as we are, faults and all and uses the same standard to judge us. He doesn’t put blinders on in order to miss someone’s mistake. He doesn’t choose to see certain sins in one person or group of people while completely ignoring them in another. Who and what we are is exactly who and what He sees, without bias or distortion.
Of course God would like to see us a certain way. God would love it if He could look at each and everyone of us, wherever we are in life, and see us as perfectly as what He had in mind when He imagined us. That’s not what he sees however. Yet in His perfectly unbiased way God still sees that perfect potential and through His forgiveness, gives us a chance to return to that most desirable of conditions. To put it another way, God sees beyond our dirty hands and faces to the pure beings He envisioned us to be. Then, when we ourselves realize how we look, He washes us clean so that we are again as perfect in His sight as in His imagination. We might not last that way too long, but that’s OK. God can see clear to tidying us up to be just as He first thought of us as often as we need it. At least that’s the way I see it.
Vision, you see, is relative: one sees according to what one is looking for. Criminal investigators and metal workers seek different ends, so they use different techniques in their work. It’s still vision, it’s still seeing something, but each one has their own agenda, their own particular end in mind. Normal folk do the same thing without using actual glasses, goggles or other vision assistance devices. Instead we use the filters within our own minds to pick and choose how and what we see.
Those filters are determined according to our personalities and our situation. The abused woman will look at a man differently from a member of the Masons. Principals and students have a polar opposite view of teachers. Dentists are seen as a person to fear by many folks, while vendors of dental supplies see them as a vital part of their business. It all depends on your point of view, on who you are, and who you’re dealing with. You can overlook a lot of faults in a beloved friend. That’s not necessarily the case when it’s someone who has a track record of hurting you.
God is the only one who sees us clearly all the time. His vision is perfect and perfectly unbiased. There are no favourites in His eyes, no one that is viewed as being a better or more desirable person. Instead He sees us as we are, faults and all and uses the same standard to judge us. He doesn’t put blinders on in order to miss someone’s mistake. He doesn’t choose to see certain sins in one person or group of people while completely ignoring them in another. Who and what we are is exactly who and what He sees, without bias or distortion.
Of course God would like to see us a certain way. God would love it if He could look at each and everyone of us, wherever we are in life, and see us as perfectly as what He had in mind when He imagined us. That’s not what he sees however. Yet in His perfectly unbiased way God still sees that perfect potential and through His forgiveness, gives us a chance to return to that most desirable of conditions. To put it another way, God sees beyond our dirty hands and faces to the pure beings He envisioned us to be. Then, when we ourselves realize how we look, He washes us clean so that we are again as perfect in His sight as in His imagination. We might not last that way too long, but that’s OK. God can see clear to tidying us up to be just as He first thought of us as often as we need it. At least that’s the way I see it.
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