A few years ago, I had one of my most challenging experiences with my natural
vision. What started out as a normal day for me ended with me having a splitting
headache and blurred vision. I thought I might have my contact lenses in the wrong
eyes so I switched them. But my vision seemed to get worse so I switched them back.
Also, I did all that I could over the next three days to clean them…but there didn’t seem
to be a strong enough solution to remove what looked like a cloudy layer on the lenses.
I reluctantly made an appointment with the eye doctor dreading having to buy another
pair of contact lenses. I prayed for God to supernaturally heal my eyes on the way to
the doctor’s office but God obviously had a more important lesson for me.
When I went to the eye doctor, he was able to clean the lenses and remove most
of what had clouded them. He stated that part of my physical discomfort was the fact
that I was right eye dominant…and it was my right eye’s contact lenses that was the
most blurred. The weaker left eye was trying to overcompensate for the temporary
weakness of the right.
He further explained that his great “top-secret” solution that cleansed my
contact lens included baking soda. He carefully explained all that he did and
recommended that I do the same thing to clean my contact lenses in the future. It was
amazing how something as simple as baking soda seemed to be the solution to
everything!
Later that day, I did what he said and marveled at the quick improvement to my
eyesight. It was still a little fuzzy, but my headache was gone. I thought to myself, how
interesting that even though it was the weakest, my left eye was over compensating for
the temporary weakness of the stronger right eye.
I also thought how that fight between my eyes to give me clear vision was similar
to our battles with faith. We don’t have enough faith that God will do something and
we over compensate by taking matters into our own hands. We think we are doing
the right thing, but in the end we cause an imbalance of faith. We say we have limitless
faith….but our actions show that we actually have limited faith. Sometimes we also
make the mistake of putting our faith in the wrong people or things.
2 Corinthians 4:18 says, “While we do not look at the things which are seen but
at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary but the
things that are not seen are eternal.” Faith, like that dirty contact lens, is what we see
the world through. If our faith is blurred, cloudy, distorted or obscured, we make poor
decisions because we have poor sight. Like that damaged lens, we have to admit that
our faith was shaken and replace our faithless eyes with the faithful eyes of God.
Shewanda Riley is a Dallas, Texas based author of “Love Hangover: Moving From Pain to
Purpose After a Relationship Ends” and “Writing to the Beat of God’s Heart: A Book of
Prayers for Writers.” Email her at preservedbypurpose@gmail.com or follow her on
Twitter @shewanda.