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| Source: whole-lifeleadership.com |
My husband and I are preparing to go to El Salvador next week to install a fresh water well with a team from Living Water International. We have partnered with this organization for years, but we are excited to participate in the action and see what they do first hand.
He is packing work boots, cargo pants, work gloves, and eye protection to use while drilling a new well for the local community, while I am printing off hygiene lessons and packing long skirts, toothbrushes, and lots of bars of soap to hand out while I work with the local hygiene team to educate and instruct the women and children of the area.
Living Water has provided us with some fantastic devotional material to study and pray through as we spiritually prepare to go on this trip. One passage of scripture which has really spoken to me is from Mark 8:24-27, when Jesus heals the blind man from Bethsaida:
"And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' And he looked up and said, 'I see people, but they look like trees, walking.' Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly."
I think so often I look around and the people around me seem like blurry, walking trees--I see them, but do not truly see them as Christ sees them. I fail to have compassion for them, and I fail to truly see their needs and offer them the hope of the Gospel. Oftentimes, I am too busy or distracted, or sadly...too apathetic and selfish. Too often, I fear man more than God and keep my mouth, and my heart, shut.
But this passage shows that there is real hope for me! Christ can lead me by the hand (love that little detail!) and touch my eyes a second time. And I am learning that, like the blind man, I too, can be honest with God about what I truly see...and what I often fail to see...so that He can bring better clarity to my vision.
I am praying and trusting God to touch my eyes a second time as I go on our trip, to see as HE does.
Will you join me in this prayer, dear friend? Will you ask Jesus to touch your eyes a second time, so you can see those around you with greater clarity, and respond with greater compassion?
May we never be the same after His second touch!
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." --Henry David Thoreau
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