I don’t know why those words are so difficult for me to say but they are. I’m okay with being wrong about small stuff. If Abbi corrects me about some detail in a story or if I get the directions to a destination mixed up, no big deal. When it comes to my gut level reaction to people and situations however, I have difficulty budging when it comes to my opinion. I generally like to believe that the way I see the world and the people in it is generally flawless.

The only problem with this assumption is that it is simply not true. The more that I study the scriptures and gain a realistic understanding of who God is, the more I realize that there is so much that I don’t see. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 the wise Apostle Paul said, “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.” Those are powerful words from Paul. Paul was a brilliant man and yet even he admitted to seeing a very small part of the much bigger picture. No matter how wise and knowledgeable we may think we are, we see only a little bit.

It’s okay that we see so little because the Bible calls us to walk by faith and not be sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). The problem comes into play when people who see so little think that they see everything. If you can actually only squint through a mist and you think you’re seeing everything perfectly, you are going to hurt yourself and others. If a blind man knows that he is blind, he can ask for help and learn to make his way around the world. If a blind man thinks he is not blind and decides to walk confidently based on his limited level of interaction with the world around him, it’s only a matter of time before he walks out into traffic thinking he is walking into a parking lot.

Have you grasped the limitations of your own sight and taken appropriate measures to walk by faith or are you still operating as though you saw the whole picture? There is a story in the gospel of John that I think shines incredible light on this subject. Jesus has just healed a blind man and the Pharisees investigated the matter to see if the healing was legit. The man who had been blind and who could now see came to Jesus to put his faith in him. Some Pharisees witness this and they pose a question to Jesus. John 9:40-41 says, “⁴⁰ Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” ⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

This is powerful. The primary guilt of the Pharisees was in claiming spiritual sight when they were actually spiritually blind. Each of us must take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask whether or not we are excluding ourselves from harmony with Jesus because we think we can see just fine on our own.