Peripheral
Vision
By Janet
Byrne
“The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord
lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.”
Psalm 146:8 (NIV)
Psalm 146:8 (NIV)
Last year, my family and I loaded into our minivan and headed
toward Madison. We had talked about the trip all week. Excitement soared as we
talked about my nephew’s wrestling in the state meet. The road trip was full of
speculations and “what if’s.”
We got to the stadium and began watching and waiting. An hour and
a half later, Josh was up! Here it was, the moment we had anticipating all
week! We watched and cheered from a distance: Josh is warming up, Josh is
taking the mat, Josh is in a pickle, Josh is pinned, Josh walks off the mat.
I’ll be honest, initially I thought, “We came all this way and
waited this long for two minutes.” I wasn’t upset with Josh, but would have
loved to stay all day and watch him get the gold! As Josh made his way towards
us, he had tears streaming down his cheeks. My heart broke for him as he had
spent months training and had yet to be pinned! However, it was what we
witnessed next that blessed our day and made the trip. As he came closer, I
witnessed the love of a father for his son. My brother wrapped his arms around
him and said, “I am proud of you.” It was then that I realized this trip wasn’t
about wrestling at all.
That day was an example of how we need God to help us see what He
wants us to see. As Christians, we often focus in on the little things with our
blinders up. We lose sight of the whole picture or what’s in our peripheral
vision. Focusing so much on the small, specific situations, we miss out on
other joys.
Like that day, we tend to concentrate on the things or outcomes we
want, but we ignore the big picture periphery. God wants us to see the
periphery… like His grace in struggles, His comfort in despair, His mercies in
joyous times. When we zone in on the little things we want, we end up missing
the outer peripheral vision of what God so desires for us to see and
experience.
My prayer for you and myself today is that we would ask God to
remove the blinders that keep us from ignoring the peripheral, and that His
Spirit would help us see and celebrate it in our life-walk.
GOING
DEEPER:
1.
What barriers do you focus on that prevent your spiritual “peripheral vision”?
2.
What do you need to do today to address that?
GOING
FURTHER:
Janet
and her husband Yancy have two sons. She is a prayer intercessor at Oakwood,
and continues working with the Just Breathe 5K Run/Walk to raise money to
prolong the lives of transplant patients like herself.
