[Membersandfriends] Friday, November 12, 2004

Thu Nov 11 22:01:51 PST 2004

The Upper Room Daily Devotional -- E-mail Edition
Brought to You by Upper Room Ministries
Friday, November 12, 2004

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NEW SIGHT
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Mark 8:22-26 (NRSV)

They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?" And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking." Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, "Do not even go into the village."

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The psalmist wrote, "Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."
- Psalm 119:18 (NRSV)
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SUFFERING with poor eyesight, I decided to undergo a cataract operation.  Soon after the procedure, I began to see familiar surroundings in a new way and to discover the various color schemes around me, particularly in clothing.  Fabric I once saw as black I could tell was actually a deep blue.  A jacket I had thought was moss green was gray.  What happened?  Things had not changed; rather, I had sharper vision.  The veil that covered my eyes had been removed, and I was living a new reality.  (See 1 Cor. 13:12 and 2 Cor. 3:13-16.)

In a spiritual sense, we may lose focus and not see clearly.  We come to know Christ and then become comfortable in our new life, forgetting to appreciate its true value.  Our spiritual vision can become clouded so that the way we look at things in our daily lives is distorted.  We live in fear and anxiety; we worry about material things; and we do not experience the joy we knew when we first gave our lives to Christ.

Let us ask God to heal our eyes and remove what clouds our vision.  With clear sight and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we can walk hand in hand with God.

Prayer:  Holy God, continually redirect our vision toward things eternal.  In Jesus' name we pray.  Amen.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Have you checked your spiritual vision lately?

-- Sofia Meliman (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

PRAYER FOCUS: Patients awaiting surgery

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RELATED READING ...

A TURBULENT PEACE: Psalms for Our Time. Through his one-page devotional commentary on each of the 150 Psalms, author Ray Waddle shows that God speaks clearly to our contemporary conditions through the Psalms' poetic and sometimes turbulent imagery.
http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/desc.asp?ep_id=30&item_id=148875

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The scripture quotation is from the NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible, copyright (c) 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.