Walk by faith and not by sight. Easy, right? I definitely thought so. I
thought I knew completely what it meant to walk by faith and not by sight..
I mean after all, here I was in Africa… following the Lord and the plan
that He has for me here, trusting that He knows what He’s doing when I
don’t. I walk by faith.
God has definitely been stretching what I “know” about walking by faith and
not by sight. He literally took away my sight. Yep. I spent July 21st
completely blind. Well, kind of. You see, I have absolutely TERRIBLE
vision… like terrible. I lost my glasses somewhere back in Kenya
(definitely not a surprising fact if you know me… I will lose just about
anything that is not glued or velcro-ed to my body). I have been extremely
irresponsible (don’t worry.. God has been breaking me of that as well) and
haven’t been taking out my contacts at night like I should be doing because
of the inconvenience of not being able to see during the time of walking
across the room to my bed from the table where I take my contacts out. I
rely on my sight A LOT. Well, not surprisingly, my eyes started freaking out
from all the dust that has been going into them and me not taking out my
contacts ever only made the problem worse. July 21st I absolutely could not
stand it anymore, and I knew I had to take them out. Abby also has terrible
vision, and her prescription is close to mine. I thought it would be a great
idea to just wear her glasses that day. Of course she let me, but it was a
terrible idea. Although her prescription is close to mine, it is different
enough to give me an insane migraine while we were painting a local
missionary’s new house. I realized in that moment how much I was dependent
and reliant on my ability to see. I was willing to use something designed
for someone else that I knew wasn’t right for me (Abby’s prescription) in
the hopes that it would be better than being completely blind. I was so
incredibly wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong. God reminded me of the
verse in 2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight”. God wants
us to follow Him BLINDLY, with faith like a child, and trust Him to lead us
when we can’t see.
I took off Abby’s glasses and couldn’t see a thing, but my headache eased
and my eyes stopped straining to focus. I had to rely on my teammates to
literally lead me around in the darkness… to warn me of the bumps and holes
in the ground, to keep me on the right path, to tell me when to turn and
what to grab and to hold my hand on the stairs. God was like “You are
walking by faith. You can trust me when you can’t see.” The coolest thing about it was the heightening of all of my other senses that day. I’ve heard about that happening, but I have never experienced it because I’ve never been willing to give up my sight. But when I couldn’t see, I could literally smell and hear everything… things I couldn’t normally smell or hear. God told me that this is what He wants for me spiritually. He wants to heighten my other spiritual senses. I didn’t realize until that day how much I actually relied on my spiritual sight and my ability to “see” where God was around me, what He was doing, and where He was moving. He wants to increase my my ability to hear Him… not just when He talks to me, but my ability to hear Him moving in the lives of others and in the world around me. He wants me to smell Him working and beckoning me like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies coming from a mile away. In 2 Corinthians 2:14 Paul talks about how we are the aroma of Christ… and how we are used to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of God. God wants us to smell Him! He wants us to spread His fragrance among the world. He wants us to be the aroma of Christ so that people become hungry for God just by our very presence. Wow. God has taught me that He wants to heighten my senses to sense Him and feel Him in new ways and take it to new extremes. I couldn’t be more pumped about being blind in my entire life. God has taught me that my ability to see is a gift and a blessing, but it was never meant to be a dependence. God wants to be the only thing I depend on… ever. I really want to get there. I thank God for breaking me one day at a time to make me into the woman of God He has created me to be. This summer isn’t about having some “God-moment” that defines and changes me forever… it’s about the little revelations from God about who I am and becoming who He’s created me to be 🙂
