Saturday morning our dog was tremendously roiled with the hair on her back standing erect. Looking out the window I saw an absolutely beautiful red fox slowly moving through our woods. Calling for my wife she came and was as pleased as I. Suddenly she realized how clearly she was seeing it without her glasses. Later that morning while driving to South Lancaster she said to me, “Look how green that field is. It is so vivid.” On Thursday she had had a cataract removed.
I immediately thought of a story in Mark 8. “They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”
Before Jesus came people thought God was a capricious being that treated us with abandon to accomplish His will. Jeremiah 18 talks of God being a potter that smashes us to pieces if He wills. Then Jesus came and said, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Jesus removed the cataracts from our eyes and we now see that the Father’s concern is always what is good for us. He is not capricious. He is as steadily good as anything can be in the vastness of the universe. To the Muslim, God is great. To the Jew, God was Holy. To us, God is good. Now we see.
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 18, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org