To See or Not To See

            It amazes me that we have the ability to see the familiar, but can be blind to that which is very real and near.  When racing a kart our focus is totally on the track surface and our competition. This is necessary, for our seeing dictates a physical reaction, such as turning the steering wheel or applying the brake so that you don't leave the track, hit the guard rail, or hit another kart. These are precise physical reactions which, if we master them well, will get us into NASCAR.
 
            My intense focus on the track when racing my kart causes me to miss a lot of other things that are going on around me.  For example, the jet plane in the sky, the ducks in the nearby pond, the hot dog the corner worker is eating.  My choice of focus causes me to not see the distractions.  We can agree there is a great need to focus on the track.  Our very lives may depend on it.  The other things are trivial.  The problem in life is being so focused on the trivial and temporal that we can become blind to the Lord and the eternal.
 
            Through the teaching of the Word of God, let it help us to see.  In the first place, God is very real and near.  Acts 17:26-27 says, "From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."  How can we who are blind because of sin come to God? 

Jesus, speaking in John 6:44, says, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day."  How are we drawn? One way is to do what I do, which is what all Christians should do.  Romans 10:14-15: "How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  Our response is to believe and hold firmly to the Gospel, the good news.

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve."
 
            To say all of that is to ask this, "Do you see or do you not see?"  I love beautiful feet. 

Chaplain Ken Dressler