About five years ago my vision started to go a little wonky.

First, I noticed that the fine print on many of the food packages I was reading was getting a little blurred. It all cleared up if I just pulled the box or bag a little further away from my face. Then I noticed I had to do the same thing with a book I was reading. But when you have to push your laptop back, it becomes a little more “in your face” that there’s a problem, Houston.

I had always had 15/20 vision, i.e. better than perfect. I saw at 20 feet what most people saw at 15. That’s was pretty cool especially after years of my mom harping on me as a kid that I was going to go blind if I sat any closer to the television.

But then middle age came for a visit and decided to stay. Not only do I wear glasses now, but because I can’t ever remember where I left them (don’t go there), I actually wear those eyeglass lanyards that my grandmother used to wear. Not the beaded ones, of course. Mine are cool.

Last spring I moved a couch into my garage so I can sit with the garage door open and stare at my green lawn, at the blossoming crape myrtles, and up into sky watching the clouds (and neighbors) meander by. I thought how sad it would be to need glasses to see those things, that I’d much rather be far-sighted than near-sighted.

Then I thought about how we tend to be hyperopic (far-sighted) spiritually–we see everybody else so clearly (or so we think), but our vision of ourselves is blurred at best.

Or we can be myopic (near-sighted) with our eyes fixed solely on our bellybuttons and we lose sight of the people around us.

And I haven’t even gotten into peripheral vision (so you don’t get blindsided), eye coordination (so you can see the whole picture), depth perception (so you don’t step into a well-laid trap), focusing ability (so you can zero in on what’s important) and color vision (so you can see the wonder and joy in life).

Jesus was omni-optical. His visual acuity was unparalleled. He could see at 10,000 light years what we can’t see right in front of our own face.

Unlike Jesus, as we move from childhood to adulthood, our vision of ourselves and others becomes fractured and flawed. We need a visit to The Optometrist. And His prescription is always the same—His Word is our corrective lenses.

But what makes God so different from LensCrafters or Pearl is that, when we follow his ophthalmological advice, our eyesight can actually improve so long as we continue to “wear” his words.

Maybe that’s why God lets our physical “windows grow dim” as we age (Eccl 12:3) so we can be reminded how desperately we need him.

I hope I can always see the setting sun turn the clouds into a kaleidoscope of color. I hope I can see purple blossoms in the summer sun, and a field of grass singing green praise to the rain. But more than anything else I pray that, until someone else closes my peepers, I’ll see myself and the world through God’s eyes.

What about you–do you tend to be myopic or hyperopic in your relationship with others?