The drops of water started falling off the visor of my bike helmet as I was riding to church on Sunday. My purple jacket had beads of water shimmering on the surface, and I was finding it a little difficult to breathe. There was no rain, only fog hovering around me. Although when I was at home it looked like it was clearing up, about 1½ km down the path the fog became fairly thick.
I try to conserve gasoline whenever possible, but this time I was reconsidering my decision to ride. The path would be fairly safe though because there were bike lanes almost the entire way except for road crossings and a little bit at the end, so I wasn’t really worried about that. The biggest problem I had was that my glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see sufficiently so I had to take them off- and I don’t usually see things in the distance clearly without them.
My choice- see well closer, but not so well far away, or leave them on and endure dim vision for the rest of the ride. At the point I was deciding, there was so much condensation on my glasses that it started forming drops and rolling down the lenses. Off they came, and I prayed for my safety. Meanwhile a thought came into my head, “…For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1Cor. 13:12 )
There is a lot said about this scripture in commentaries, but to me it is basically saying that as humans we see only partially and imo it’s talking about everything. Our mere, finite, human minds cannot comprehend all the complexities of the truth, God and life, therefore we cannot ‘see’ it. We don’t ‘see’ God as He really is, only how we perceive Him to be or how He is based on what we were told when we were young. We don’t ‘see’ life or ourselves in the same light the Lord does because we are biased based on our history. We don’t ‘see’ what is to be because we are influenced by what we want to be, how it should be done, and who all we think should be involved! It’s like we’re looking at everything with foggy glasses.
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1Cor. 2:9
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1Jn. 3:2
There will come a day when we shall ‘see’ with clear, sharp eyes, and that day is when the Lord returns for us, His people. In that day, we shall see Him as He really is and not as the image we have of Him in our mind. Right now, we can only picture how heaven will look and how eternal life will be lived (foggy glasses!) but one day we will be living in it and all will be crystal clear to us. The more often we take off our foggy glasses now as we sit at the Lord’s feet, the more prepared we will be for what is to come. Face to face with our Lord: ‘Then I shall know even as I am known.’
Thank You Jesus for all You have done.
Help me to see clearly everything You need me to see.