I have on my wall here a small poster, which is laid out in the form of the classic eye-chart at the opticians, with large print at the top, and the print size reducing as you move down the page. What does it say? Read on to find out!
If you weren’t there on June 12th, I hope you have at least seen the video – and given some money! It was an amazing experience in all sorts of ways, not least being led into St Peter’s when I was blindfolded! Let me tell you a bit about that. I have walked into the church I guess on average 4 times a week for 11 years – over 2000 times – in normal sighted mode. This was different.
Sitting outside the church I asked to be blindfolded, and used the first thing that came to hand – my black preaching scarf! (There could be a parable there somewhere – put on your official garments and lose your perspective – Andy and Jonathan watch out!). I was then led by an experienced sighted guide into the building.
That was scary! I knew roughly where the door was, approximately where the steps were, but still managed to be tense and edgy. And I still managed to walk straight into the table at the bottom of the stairs! [A note here - how to pray for our VI friends and neighbours - life for them contains more tension, more unknowns, and more physical accidents, so their bodies take a pounding, and wear and tear becomes a real issue.]
Then up the spiral staircase, one hand on the right-hand outside wall. All going well – until we walked past a window recess, and suddenly the wall wasn’t there any more – more scary moments. Oddly, though, from then on life was fairly easy, because I had done the same route 5 minutes earlier, with my eyes open, so knew what lay ahead. And not being able to look over the parapet was an advantage, in one way, as I couldn’t see how far it was to drop! And then safely down, which was amazing.
Back to the top (this article, not the tower). The poster has these words on it “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). Too easily we rely on what we can see around us, whereas we are called to put our trust in, rely on, the unseen truths of what God has done for us in Christ. I think I understand just a little bit more now of what this phrase means.
Walking by sight comes “naturally” – walking by faith means placing our hands in someone else’s grip, and trusting our lives into their hands! Thank God that “He who called us is faithful” and we can trust Him. (2 Thess 5:24)