with eyes wide open

It’s officially Autumn weather here in the STL. Maybe even a bit cooler than the average October. I don’t mind though, cause that means necessary layers which I love, but which looks and feels terrible in the summer. I don’t, however, like to layer it up while I’m at home. It’s a very strange thing. I actually wear as little clothing as possible while still maintaining proper roommate etiquette all throughout the year. So when I’m home and freezing cause we don’t want to turn the heat on there’s a problem.

The problem with turning the heat on so early though is that she wins. She, being Mother Nature and I look and feel like a wuss. She pulled a fast one here though. One day it was literally 83 degrees and the very next day it was 53. Wuss! Oh my word, I was such a wuss. I pulled out my heater fan, which I just think is the best thing ever, and warmed myself up.

However brilliant heater fans are, they are big energy suckers for being such small things.  None the less, my roomy had the same wussing out- heater fan experience. One thing led to the other and we flipped our breaker. Not such a big deal on a Saturday morning at 4 am when everyone gets up to their cell phone alarm anyway. It was a bigger deal when I was in the shower at 7 and the lights went out. You never really know just how dark those windowless interior rooms are until you’re unexpectedly left in the dark… in the shower, potentially already having your eyes closed… because it’s 7 in the morning on a Saturday… and you’re still not quite awake.

As I stood in that shower for those few confusing moments of darkness I thought about……. how dark it was. I know, pretty profound right? But really it was for me. I often do close my eyes in the shower and in those moments I could not tell whether my eyes were opened or closed. That’s how dark it was. But then the lights came back on and I could clearly tell darkness from light- eyes shut or eyes open.

2 Corinthians 4:4 says “In their case (those who are perishing vs.3) the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

I thought about how the god of this world, Satan, works and how he so blinds people that when they are in the dark they don’t know when their eyes are opened or when their eyes are shut. When in darkness, they don’t know that they are necessarily in darkness. It all looks the same with eyes open or with eyes shut.

But then light comes. John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  When the light comes it clearly distinguishes between dark and light. I know for certain whether my eyes are opened or closed. Even if I chose to keep them closed I know that light is on the other side.

Matthew 4:16 says “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,… on them a light has dawned.” 

 A light has graciously dawned on those who believe. It was no work that we did to make the light shine, it simply did and at that moment our eyes were opened. We don’t yell at physically impaired blind people to see because they in themselves cannot change their circumstances. Likewise, it is pointless to yell at a spiritually blind person. Instead, with eyes wide open, we speak of what light is like and pray that they too would have eyes pried open stepping out of darkness into glorious light.