Reading: Psalm 119
ג Gimel
(Verses 17-24)
Be good to your servant while I live,
that I may obey your word.
Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law.
I am a stranger on earth;
do not hide your commands from me.
My soul is consumed with longing
for your laws at all times.
You rebuke the arrogant, who are accursed,
those who stray from your commands.
Remove from me their scorn and contempt,
for I keep your statutes.
Though rulers sit together and slander me,
your servant will meditate on your decrees.
Your statutes are my delight;
they are my counselors (NIV).
Open my eyes that I may see — photo by David Kitz
Reflection
My wife knows all about my blindness. Actually, it’s a condition that afflicts many men. You see I have difficulty seeing what is right in front of me. She will tell me to get a certain item from the next room, but can I find it? Of course not. Eventually, my long-suffering wife will arrive to point out the obvious. To which I will respond with, “Now, why couldn’t I see that?”
She will then reply with, “Because you’re blind.”
I’m sure domestic scenes like this are repeated in homes all over the world. But something very similar happens when we open our Bibles. We read a passage and though we take it in with our eyes, it seems the words go nowhere. The thoughts expressed by those words do not register on our minds or in our spirits. I’m ashamed to admit there are times when I have read a chapter from the Bible and walked away completely unaware of what I have read. Nothing has registered. The psalmist’s prayer in today’s reading needs to become my own: Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
Unless God opens our eyes when we read His word, we are engaging in an exercise in futility. The Holy Spirit inspired the apostles and prophets to write the Bible, and we urgently need the same Holy Spirit to bring those words alive for us as we read. The god of this world has blinded our eyes. Often God’s truths are veiled. We need the Holy Spirit to remove that veil. Something marvelous happens when that occurs. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3: 18).
Response: Father God, open my eyes and my heart to the truths of your glorious word. Day by day I want to grow in my knowledge and love for you. I need to be transformed by your Spirit. Remove the veil from my eyes. Amen.
Your Turn: Do you regularly read God’s word? Do you sometimes suffer from Bible blindness?
Finally, on this day let’s remember those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.
Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
There’s another type of Bible blindness:
When Lot’s wife looks back at her home and the suffering of her neighbors and their children as Jehovah punishes them for their evil ways, I imagine this loss of home and former life and all her friends and neighbors to be a trauma to her as she flees for her life with no particular destination or hope. I imagine her awe and horror at what was happening. She is not to be curious or concerned about all this violence and death. She is supposed to be thinking of her and her husband’s and daughters’ lives spared by a “merciful” god, but she’s concerned about others — even if she doesn’t know them well — even if they do sinful things. Isn’t this what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the Good Samaritan? Jesus wanted us to show concern and compassion for our neighbors and enemies. If I had been Lot — or maybe if Lot had been me — I would have knelt down in despair at my dead wife rather than continue onward. This “sin” isn’t a sin. It’s just a story to scare us from asking questions and looking at the bigger picture or being mindful of the humanity in our enemies and those we deem “wicked.”
Furthermore, this same family, as a direct result of the death of the mother, resorts to incest to continue their male line, which is apparently of vital significance to Lot and the author of this story. This is additional trauma on top of the trauma of losing their mother and wife. So Jehovah’s decision to spare this family from the fate of the rest of Sodom and Gamorrah has resulted in deceit and incest, not life going on well.
I have often wondered if this was wise and why it was necessary. Evil still exists and is fairly in balance with Good as it has been since humans began overpopulating this planet. I’m not even sure the violence against these two sinful cities was particularly effective in helping life go on well for the remaining cities and their inhabitants.
And I wonder as we fail to be curious about the lives and neighbors of Fallujah, Iraq, if we were not doing something wrong instead of something right; if we were not particularly “good” as we sent massive bombs followed by troops with machine guns into selected neighborhoods of the city where a few people or children might not be particularly “bad.” We don’t look at the suffering we’ve caused; at the disruption of over a million lives as they flee the terror caused by our unilateral invasion of Iraq. They are all hidden from us with a blanket condemnation. For those interested, the other side of this story is told most eloquently by a young Iraqi college student who lived through our invasion and it’s effects on her family and neighborhood: Baghdad Burning (riverbendblog.blogspot.com also a book). She’s currently living outside Iraq in a neighboring country as one of over a million Iraqi refugees with passport and visa problems, her life quite different from being a carefree co-ed when we crossed Iraq’s borders with tanks, helicopters, bombers and troops.
And I have another example of Bible blindness:
In the story of Job, it hasn’t escaped my notice that, after Jehovah won his bet with the Devil, he sort-of made everything right with Job. That’s what we’re meant to take away. But he didn’t make everything right with Job’s wife and first family, collateral damage in this gentlemen’s bet. Again, women are not seen as important characters by the author of this story and, by implication, the “God” in this story. The misogyny in this book is sometimes offensive to modern minds informed by history and a far more circumspect world view.
I’m convinced that all people are partly “good” and partly “bad.” This strongly-held opinion came from 20 years of sitting in 12-step meetings of various kinds and seeing people and behavior change over time. The catalyst for that change was compassion. When people stopped being blind to the harm they were causing others, they were changed, much like the change that happens in churches all the time. And that change was most often permanent.
Dave — and thank you again for your indulgence. My blog is DavesWorld.org and I welcome your responses.
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