Contributed by Rebecca Anderson

Our family has an insurance policy that helps pay for the cost of an annual eye exam and glasses each year.  We made an appointment to get our eyes checked, and our son was quite disappointed to find out that his eyes had changed significantly since his last eye exam.  Because the doctor told him he shouldn’t be driving until the new glasses arrived, he was more than a little disappointed by the diagnosis.

Actually, he insisted that he didn’t have any trouble seeing – until he put on the new glasses!  The change was pretty dramatic, but our son didn’t know how bad his vision had become until he put on the new glasses!  Seeing through the new lenses made everything clear, put things in the proper perspective, and gave him more confidence.

It made me think that our spiritual lives require a periodic evaluation, too!  A time when we stop and define how we’re seeing things.  Are we allowing our relationship with Jesus to define and color everything we see?  Or is our vision clouded by by sin, selfishness, busyness, or anger?

This makes me think of a hymn called “Be Thou My Vision”, and it invites God to be our vision, to influence our very thoughts.  Here are the words:

Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, Save that Thou art; Thou my best thought by day or by night, Waking or sleeping They presence my light.

Be thou my Wisdom and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; Thou my great Father, I Thy true son, Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one.

High King of heaven, my victory won, May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n's Sun!  Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still by my Vision, O Ruler of all.

When you hear the choir sing this song, take that time to check your spiritual vision – and ask Him to be your vision!

About Be Thou My Vision:  Ancient Irish Melody, tr. Mary E. Byrne 1880-1931, versified: Eleanor H. Hull 1860-1935