Our fellowship group hasn’t met in person since the end of March but yesterday, now that we are in Covid Alert level one, we met for a bring and share lunch to celebrate the four birthdays in September. As I was eating my potato salad, the young man sitting opposite me stopped me and said there was a hair on my potato salad. I looked where he pointed but I saw nothing. My husband found the hair and removed it for me. My eyes are probably my weakest physical attributes. I wear contact lenses for distance vision and multifocals for reading.
This morning I read the words of Jesus from Revelation 3:17-18, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” NIV
As somebody with weak eyesight, I regard the eye salve as the most important treasure Jesus is offering. If I can’t see that I am poor and naked, I won’t see the need to buy gold or white clothes. If I can’t see that I am a sinner, I won’t repent.
I get a picture in my mind of a small girl in a forest. She makes a broom of branches and sweeps pine needles into lines to make walls of her imaginary house. She sweeps the interior clean and then gathers acorns for her treasure. She doesn’t know her family has no money, that her clothes are torn and dirty, that her hair is unwashed and unkempt. She considers herself rich because she has so many acorns.
I tremble to think that I might be like that little girl, blind to the reality of how God sees me.
My Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, please open my eyes to my sin, the poverty of my love, my uncleanness. Give me ointment for my eyes, gold so that I may be rich towards you, and clothes, white and spotless, that can only be obtained through Your sacrifice. Thank You. Amen.
Coffee in the Rain 