1 Cor 13:12
For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.
Our perspective often colors (distorts) our vision. We do not realize the distortion for what it is because we are able to only see out from our perspective. That is why we need others, and more importantly, a standard to measure our perspective from. That is what the word of God is for us. But how often do we use it prior to pronouncing judgments? We are often quick to speak, slow to listen and instantaneous to castigate.
Counting to ten may not help either. As long as our perspective is not examined, waiting for years also may not change critical attitudes entombed in layers of encrusted habit.
“Therefore, having such a hope” are words that lie hidden as clues in verse twelve of this chapter. The word hope is a clue to the removal of tinted glasses we peer out at life from. What is our hope? What is our hope for the people, for situations and for events? When examined, we may realize we don’t hold out much hope for people. We assume they will never change, or just change for the worst. We deny them the chance to also come under the liberating rays of truth and grace. And it is there that our perspective is locked down and our eyes cloud with a gray pall that never leaves us. The greatest deception is that we can remain oblivious to our own blindness. That is why in verse 14 it says, “their minds were closed.”
Tagore poignantly writes a prayer, which rings true…
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
That heaven can only be achieved if our hope is heavenly. And hope, the Bible writes, “does not disappoint us…” so at the end these three remain.. faith, hope and love.
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