A New Lens                                                                           Jun. 20/19

Poor diamonds have "inclusions" - tiny imperfections rarely visible to the naked or untrained eye, but  which cause discoloration, decreased clarity and lesser value.

The lens in a human’s eye can shine like a diamond, but develops an opaqueness similar to an inclusion when afflicted with a cataract.  Gradually as we age, most of us will develop this debilitating condition which, if left untreated, will definitely decrease our vision and possibly cause complete blindness.  Recently my husband has had the privilege of becoming the extremely pleased owner of two new lenses! Gone is the blurriness that was so troublesome to all his daily activities – now replaced with better than "20:20" vision!

As with almost all circumstances in our lives here on earth, there are spiritual dimensions in them which can reveal something more about our heavenly Father, if we have the eyes to see.  Perhaps we have had a certain misunderstanding about our Lord that has clouded our vision, thus hindering our walk with Him.

Recently while reading Hebrews 12 again, “My son (daughter), do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him…”  I discovered with the lens of Greek language, that "chastening" here can also be translated as child training.  We know that the Bible says our Lord Jesus is the firstborn among many sons, and I don’t think many parents would disagree that sons need alot of training!

The chapter goes on to say that He rebukes and chastens (trains) us because He loves us, and that this discipline actually confirms we belong to Him.   Even though this may manifest as a painful circumstance in our lives, if we allow ourselves to be trained by these various trials, we will greatly benefit now and even eternally.

God truly is love, but perhaps our natural lens prevents us from seeing very accurately and we therefore interpret any difficult trial here as a lack of our heavenly Father’s love.  No!   After speaking of this training, this chastening; the chapter in Hebrews continues by encouraging believers to keep going so that “what is lame may be healed.”  Our Father warns us against falling short of His grace, lest a root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble – the kind that prevented Esau from really "seeing" the consequences of giving up his birthright blessing, simply because he was hungry for the now.

If we could truly see that our trials are under the sovereign hand of God’s perfect love we could relax, “be still and know that He is God.”  Dear believer, do keep on coming to and walking with the Savior. To kiss His hand, even when it has allowed pain is to be exercised, trained and therefore matured until we “all come…to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…no longer children…but may grow up in all things into Him…” Ephesiana 4:12-15

As I’ve said before, “It will be worth it all when we see Christ,” and with this new, exceedingly valuable lens we can clearly see!