Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people. Ezekiel 12:1-2 NIV

I have been reading a book by Jennifer Rothschild. If you don't know of her, she is a strong Christian woman who became blind at a young age. What I have learned from reading her story is that, while she may not physically be able to see as you and I do, she truly sees much more than you and I do. Perhaps, being sheltered from the overload of visual stimulation in the world has allowed her to let the Holy Spirit be her eyes in ways that we have not yet experienced.

In watching the news headlines lately, it seems the human race is currently acting more out of fear and anger right now than anything else. So many decisions are made either out of bitterness to someone or something else, or they are made because we fear not making them. We don't really know what to do, and so we allow our emotions to dictate most of our steps. Truly, is that any different than what we as individuals tend to do in these difficult times? It may seem the decisions are more important or more far reaching when they are made by someone important enough to be in the news. However, even the consequences of our own simple decisions will soon reach someone else.

It has recently come to my attention that what so many people are running away from or are afraid of is simply God, or their version of God. We fear what God thinks of us. We fear what God might do next. We fear that God judges us. We fear that God condemns us. We fear that God doesn't even understand us. It's really not all that simple. We fear a god who doesn't even exist. No, No, don't get me wrong. God does exist! The One and Only Immanuel, God With Us, Savior, Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End---He very much exists!! However, what we fear is what we have made God out to be, and we have made him in our image! That isn't God! God wasn't made in our image. We were made in His image! He is unimaginable, but not unattainable! He is everything you could ever hope Him to be, and yet so much more. Sadly, He is not much of what we have trained ourselves to believe He is. And yet, He is so much more than we have allowed ourselves to believe He is!

Through the world, we have learned to only see and hear what the world wants us to see and hear. Like someone in hypnosis, we have allowed the Earth to become our cradle as we are rocked to sleep by the enemy of this world. We try to see God with our physical eyes. We try to determine what He sees based upon what we can see. We can only truly see God with our hearts, and we must trust in the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the falsehoods that surround us. We can not possibly know everything that God sees or what his next move might be, but the more we truly know him as He truly is, then the better we can understand what He does allow us to know.

"Think outside the box" is an old cliche that urges you to think about something in a different way than you normally would. Today, I believe that we have to start thinking "inside the Book." In other words, rather than determining that we already know enough about God, rather than determining that we already know what the Bible says, based upon whatever we have been taught, we should seek truth out for ourselves. We do this by reading his Word, praying for understanding of that word, and most of all praying that all preconceptions or misconceptions be revealed to us. I am not asking that we try to make something new. I am asking that we go back to the old. I am asking that we remove the weight of this world and find our way back to the freedom and peace that only the one true God can bring. That would be the God introduced in the Holy Bible, not the one explained by the world.

Father, we ask that you truly give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Help us not to be a rebellious people. Help us to be a light shining with Truth in a dark world. Amen