ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
October 7, 2022
Important Safety Tip – Do not try to write your daily Etching without glasses. A few days ago, I was up early and started writing my Etching for the next day. I left my glasses in the bedroom, and though I do not have the worst eyesight in the world, looking at a screen early in the morning left me with some fuzziness. Mostly, I was mispelling and not noticing how the autocorrect was choosing to involve itself. And to no surprise, it was only batting about .500, and so the meaning of a few sentences was dramatically changed. The good news is that I did not finish the Etching that morning, and when I came back to it later in the day (wearing glasses), I caught the egregious and sometimes humorous mistakes. I still make many errors in my Etchings, but that time I caught the worst of them.
In Acts 26, Paul is recounting his experience of transformation years earlier. He describes it as the Lord rescuing him, appointing him to be a witness by which the eyes of others would be opened, and with this new vision, they could turn from the darkness to the light. My eyes did not need to be opened, but they did need a correction – specifically the correction gifted to me by glasses. But there are other places where my sight needs some correction, where the eyes of my heart need to be opened. I think God sends us people, like Paul, to help us better see who God is, who we are, and how to better align our lives with God’s dream for this world. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we do not need any additional corrections, yet what we produce has numerous errors and does not communicate what we hoped to communicate. God is gracious, and in that grace, my prayer is for God to expand and correct my vision enough to glimpse God’s beckoning upon my life.
I trust you to be persistent, O God, as you continue to help clear my vision and adjust my perception. Amen.
