My eyesight began failing in high school, and I could barely see what the teachers scribbled on the board.

I had to squint in order to lure the writings into focus. When squinting failed, I would borrow my classmates’ notes, plough through lousy handwriting and misspellings, and jot down the notes.

One time, in a random surge of overconfidence, I scribbled what I thought was the correct math formula from the board.

In preparation for exams, I spent oodles of time working out the math problem using the warped formula.

When I was handed my results, I was appalled at the imposing red-inked cross against the specific math question.

I had missed the answer. Undeterred, I sought an audience with my teacher, armed with my notes.

“This formula in your book is wrong. Where on earth did you get it ?” he pressed.

The message was home. I needed a solution for my shortsightedness or risk garnering lousy grades.

Jesus had a thing to say about poor eyesight.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Mathew 6:22-23)

Naturally, we only move into spaces that our eyes deem safe. We rely heavily on our eyes to assess where to be and what to do.

When our eyesight fails, we visit an eye doctor because we cannot risk fumbling around.

With great vision, we are unhindered.

In the same way, Jesus warns us against bad spiritual eyesight.

With poor spiritual eyesight, we risk tumbling into ditches, spraining knees, and fracturing bones. Yet we are children of the light.

What’s more, he warns that we may think we are cruising in the light while we are, all along, groping in the dark.

It’s possible to confuse darkness for light.

Misdirected Zeal

As an incensed crowd pelted stones at Stephen for boldly declaring his faith in Jesus, one man kept an eye on their clothes.

A rush of adrenaline coursed through his body as each stone landed on the martyr with a thud.

He smiled in mirth and nodded in approval.

That man was Saul, and he lived for such moments. He relished seeing the disciples of Jesus twitch their faces and grit their teeth in explicable pain.

How could they claim that Jesus was the Messiah? What blasphemy! What temerity!

He was a devout Jew and Pharisee, raised in the Hebrew law and culture, dotting all the i’s and crossing the t’s.

He considered himself a top-tier Hebrew. A Hebrew of Hebrews.

His resume was prim and proper: circumcised on the 8th day, from the tribe of Benjamin, and a stickler for the law (Philippians 3:5-6).

With the gait of a lion, he preyed on Jesus’s disciples, nipping at their heels, breathing threats, and sending them behind bars. (Acts 9:1,2)

He even secured letters from the high priest in Jerusalem, authorising him to rain terror on the followers of Jesus.

With power in his pockets, he made Jesus’s followers shake in their boots and scamper for safety.

He was a man driven by zeal, only that his zeal was misguided.

The light within him was pitch dark.

He had confused darkness for light.

His spiritual eye was diseased, and he didn’t have a clue.

En route to Damascus, he encountered the real light.

“As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven…and he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’” (Acts 9:3,5).

The light shining on him was so bright that his physical eyes gave way.

He instantly went blind.

“And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.” (Acts 9:9)

Ananias, a disciple of Jesus, would later pray for him. Scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.

Jesus, the eye doctor, had recalibrated his vision.

Perhaps the resetting of his physical eyes is a picture of what Jesus was doing to his diseased spiritual eyes.

A Life Turned on Its Head

Everything flipped around for Saul when He encountered Jesus, the light.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’.” (John 8:12)

Darkness was expelled.

The crooked paths were made straight, and perspective aligned.

The very things that Paul previously frowned upon, deeming them foolish, became his greatest treasure.

The same man who once persecuted Christians morphed into Jesus’s chief ambassador to the Gentiles.

He was willing to endure the last drop of persecution for Christ.

He would go the whole nine yards for the Messiah without flinching.

He was love-fogged.

He later faced imprisonment, stoning, flogging, shipwrecks, and lived in constant danger.

He proudly counted all things as rubbish for the excellence of knowing Christ and making Him known (Phillipians 3: 7-9).

What a stark difference between a man guided by darkness and one guided by light!

Like Paul, meeting with Jesus, the light of the world, is the first step to living an illuminated life.

Accepting Him as Lord and Savior shatters the scales off our eyes, dispelling the darkness.

His light compels us to abandon our ways and follow his leading.

Reflection

✍️Have you received Jesus Christ, the light of the world? If you haven’t and would love to, make this prayer in faith and receive salvation, God’s free gift to you.

I come to You, God, and acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe that Your Son, Jesus, died on the cross to take away my sin. I believe He rose from the dead so I can be justified and made righteous through faith in Him. This day I choose to follow You, Jesus. I pray that you fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for saving me! Amen.

✍️If you are already a believer, have you allowed God’s word to illuminate your path?

📖His word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to our path. (Psalm 119:105)

📖The entrance of His words gives light and gives understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130)

✍️Is your eye good or diseased? Is the light within you dark? Take time and evaluate your life priorities and choices.

📖Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Mathew 6:33).