FACING IMPOSSIBLE PAIN
FINDING INCREDIBLE POWER
by Levi Lusko, Lesson Series, Website
The naked eye
Every moment of every day, you are in an invisible battle that ever rages on. As real as the ancient ones you read about in history class and as current as the clips shown on the evening news, it's as bloody as the French Revolution and as sinister as a suicide bombing. That is not something that could happen someday--it's happening right now. You've heard of the War of the Roses? This is the War of the Lenses.
Most of the time, we shuffle along quite oblivious to the great majority of what is actually happening. We drink our lattes and double-click our friends' pictures on Instagram, never giving thought to the fact that we are being watched. There are grades to get at school and money to make at work. Bills don't pay themselves. You probably need to organize the garage don't you? (I know I do. As much fun as it is having to channel my inner David Blaine to get out of my car, it would be marvelous to open my door more than ten inches.) All the while, unseen things all around us go unnoticed.
Outside the sky remained stormy, but inside me the downpour had been briefly suspended. I walked in and ordered, then sat down on a stool by the bar and waited for my coffee. I looked around and wondered if anyone knew how much I was hurting. Scanning the room, I saw many people but felt very, very alone. How many times had I sat next to people who were suffering but been completely unaware of the agony they were going through?
This is war: every moment of every day, we must make the all-important choice of whether we will rely on the naked eye. Will we trust what we can see is there, or believe what God says is there? It's a decision we are continually confronted with. The apostle Paul put it this way: "So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever" (2 Corinthians 4:18).