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I WAS, Once Blind But Now I See

by Shannon Heiden
11/11/2008 / Devotionals

I WAS Eyes To The Blind.
I Was Feet To The Lame,
I Was a Father To The needy;
I Took Up The Case of A Stranger.
Job 29:15

Beautiful One, there was a time in your life when you were blind, BUT through the love of a Savior, those blinded eyes of yours- now see and I am wondering; what is it that you see?

We all have heard the wonderful and timeless hymn " Amazing Grace," it's lyrics and script has been recited and sung throughout all of history.The song was penned by Captain John Newton, and this was no ordinary Captain and neither was the cargo he transported the many miles he traveled across the sea. John Newton was in the slave trade industry and the very deck in which this man got saved by God on, still, for a time afterward held below it, men, women and children -slaves, human beings that were created by God himself.

You see, although John had submitted his life to God in a raging storm and had a real conversion into Christianity, it took some time for his spiritual eyes to begin to see and to focus on what God the Father sees. And like John, maybe it has taken you and I some time to really see and care about what God cares about.

Who is the blind? Are they just the ones who have lost their natural sight? Are the blind the ones who are deceived? Are they lost? Are they the careless? Maybe they are the blind on purpose?

Who is the blind?

The blind are the ones who have not seen God clearly. The blind are the many spiritual vagabonds wandering upon this earth that have yet to have their spiritual eyes awakened. The blind are the many and yes they are in our churches as well.

There was a time when I was blind, I was saved and spirit filled but early on in my walk, all my eyes seemed to focus on was usually only what was right in front of them -ME, nothing above and beyond from where I stood, my sight was shortsighted and most of the time it short circuited because I hadn't learned how to train my eyes to walk by faith and love and not by sight and self.

Beautiful One, it is not unusual for us as we start our journey with the Lord to be more "me" sighted than "they" sighted, but as time goes on, as God teaches us and trains us to hear His voice and learn His ways and we grow more in sync with His desires, as this happens, we then start to move from a "see me, it's all about Me" attitude into a spirit of gratitude that becomes the very vessel in which He uses to help another.

We go from; "bless me Lord", to; "bless me so that I may be a blessing".

It is possible to know the Lord and love him and yet be blinded yourself... It is possible to be a Christian and yet be so self centered that we can miss opportunity's to take the sight that God has given us and find a need and fill it. It is possible to be sitting upon the deck of Christianity and not realize that below us is another who is tied up in chains and needs our help up.

When I think of the many men, women and children who have no vision, who haven't even heard about destiny, who have never had anyone-not one person ever have a conversation with them and tell them that they have a calling or a purpose other than walking this life out alone and unaware that there is a God within their grasp who loves them and has a great vision for their life, when I even think of it my heart hurts so badly.

Just ponder it a moment, we as Christians have trials and plenty of things come our way where we need to be encouraged daily by God and others, but to think that there is a woman out there who has never been told how precious she is, that she was created by a God who loves her and approves of her, so she stays in an abusive situation that is harming her and her children, or what about that man who has struggled and survived all of his life, beaten by his father, rejected by his mother, never been loved by those closest to him, so he opts out of life and settles for some payback on the streets?

Think about the overpopulation in Prisons, men and women grace the doors of the iron gate because somewhere along their way, the pain and adversity's blinded their convictions and corrupted their hearts.

What about all those children born to chemically addicted parents? They are abused and neglected at the deepest levels and all they have known in their short time on this earth is rejection, sorrow and misery.

These children grow up and they are the men and women we encounter today. Don't we realize that each one of us is a sum total of all that we've seen, known and been through?

And if the places we've been to and the things we've been told and taught are not under the blood of Christ and redeemed and made new, then we are walking around spiritually blinded and viewing life through the cracked lens of pain.

Beautiful One, the hope you and I have as children of God is that we have been given perfect sight, 20/20 vision, we have it, we may not use it but we have it. Does God want us to just look at the outward appearance of someone's actions? Does God do that? No, God does not look at the outward appearance but at each persons heart.

Thank God for that....Because when our actions don't line up with our hearts intentions (and they wont), God, in His mercy sees that although we may have missed it, that isn't what our heart truly wanted to do.

When you encounter the unlovely in life, do you just see what they do outwardly or do you see what might have happened to them to get them to where their actions have taken them? Is the man on the street drinking himself into an oblivion, was he born that way, did he come out of his mothers womb a drunk? Was he born cursing, angry and hurting people? Or was he molded and shaped that way by the many events in his own life that ultimately displaced him from society?

What about the woman you may know or have seen that uses her body to get what she wants; do you just see her actions as lurid and offensive or do you see that maybe she never had a father tell her she was precious and that her body was so sacred and special that it was only meant to be loved on by a remarkable man who would cherish her?

There are countless others still, who fill our streets of society who are the "so called drainage on our economy", uneducated, poverty stricken, trained and taught to be mentally and physically challenged to produce at a level most of us would consider indecent and not worth living for.
These ones are wandering lost and blinded to the reality that you and I can easily take for granted and that is; they do not know there is something better on the other side of their blindness.....

A vision of a God who loves them and has more for them than what they've known!

So, how then, do we become eyes to the blind?

It's simple- we look to our Father, we look to the Author and the Finisher of our Faith-Jesus Christ, we look to the One who sees it all and sees it clearly. As we cling to Him, as we spend time with Him our hearts are changed, our spiritual eyes are born and we no longer view life and approach it to see what's in it for us; we approach life as our golden opportunity to make God shine and to make His Name Great throughout the land by helping Him -help another.

Don't wait until you understand it all to reach out to someone, just do it, and do it today! As children of the most High God, He has surely placed you in a position to be a conduit of His love, mercy and grace to someone else. There is someone right in front of you that is blind and you are the very eyes that God has given them to see the truth. You don't even have to strain your eyes to find a need and fill it, people are everywhere we go.

One of the most incredible experiences you will ever come to know that will enrich your very existence is when you reach out to someone, anyone, and you don't look at the outward appearance but you see them with the eyes of your heart. The very fact that they exist means God loves them and it means we are to love them too. You may not change them or turn their life around but remember LOVE NEVER FAILS and maybe you can just help ease there suffering.

Remember Captain John Newton? Well early on in his story when he was a young man, he was brutally mistreated and abused, he even fled his work detail on a ship because he wasn't treated right, how ironic, he was brutalized and abused, so what did he end up doing?

Only what he knew.....

But thanks to an Amazing God and His Amazing Grace, John the blind man who once was lost, was now found and became eyes to the blind......

Beautiful One, Just Believe, and Through The Amazing Grace That You've Been Given- Go,

And Do The Same......

Shannon Heiden
[email protected]
changingonelifereachingmany.typepad.com

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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