I was sitting opposite a window where the Venetian blind was at its open point. Looking through the window, the edge-on slats of the blind made straight lines down through the view, altering and obstructing what I could see of the garden outside.
They seriously detracted from the beauty of the pink windflowers swaying gently in the breeze, distorting their rhythm, violating their delicate colouring with black lines and fragmenting the flow of the picture.
Then I discovered that I could make the dark lines go away merely by focusing my eyes differently. I deliberately focused my eyes away from the slats of the blind and focused on the windflowers only. By some quirk of sight, the lines simply disappeared. They were still there but I did not see them when I focused on what was beyond them on the other side. My view was clear and unimpeded.
It did not happen without conscious effort because it depended on what I really wanted to see. I could look at something unsightly or I could look at something beautiful. It depended on my choice of view and on where I chose to fix my eyes.
Isn’t that what Paul tells us? I suspect he was telling us to make up our minds about what we really wanted to see and if we fixed our eyes on it, we would see it clearly. If we made the effort and took the trouble to do so, we could see what so many choose not to see.
Listen to what he said, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2nd Corinthians 4:18).
It’s a view that really is worth the effort.
Elizabeth Price