Can You Believe Your Eyes?

Do you wear glasses? How clearly can you see? Do you have 20/60, 20/40, or the prized 20/20 vision? Without knowing your answers to the previous three questions, I know that your eyes plays tricks on you.

Here are a couple of examples:

Which orange circle is larger, the one on the right or the one of the left?  

Which square is darker, A or B?

Are you sure of your answers?

At first glance, most of us would probably say the circle on the right is larger, and square A is obviously darker. However, if you chose the circle on the right and square A, you chose incorrectly.

Believe it or not, both circles are the same size, and both squares are the same color. Our eyes play tricks on us. 

Like these optical illusions, our circumstances can also cause our eyes to deceive us. Maybe when you look at your life, you can’t see how things could possibly change or get better, and so you see a hopeless situation. Maybe everything you see seems to tell you God doesn’t see or care because it doesn’t seem like He’s done anything, or because what you have hoped for hasn’t happened. There have been times my eyes have told me things that I know are contrary to the truth. 

What is the truth? The truth is, God does see. He saw Hagar in Genesis 16, as she was running away, and she called Him, “The God who sees me” or El Roi. No matter what we are going through or how things may appear, God sees and He knows what we are experiencing. Not only does God see, but He is also aware of our needs. In Matthew 6:8, Jesus says that God knows what we need, even before we ask Him.

The truth is, God has a plan, regardless of what things look like. In Romans 8:28, Paul writes, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” And David writes, in Psalm 139:16, that God had written out all the days of his life before a single day had passed.

The truth is, we are not hopeless. In Lamentations, we read of a miserable situation, yet in Lamentations 3:21-26 the author says, “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” We can hope, no matter what we are going through, because God loves us, He is compassionate, and He is faithful!

We can’t always believe our eyes—which is why it is so important that “we walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). 

When what you see doesn’t match what you know is true, which will you trust?