Devotion Monday February 11, 2008

Monday, February 11, 2008

Vision

Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So it is with people who sometimes cover up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and so quench transcendent glories with a little shining dust.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin 1814-1880, American Author, Clergyman

Prov 29:18
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. KJV

Chapin has a very good point doesn’t he? If you put a penny close to your eye you it may cover a dollar that is two feet away. His point speaks toward riches and the gain of riches blotting out the more important spiritual gains that should be our goal while we are here. Ralph Waldo Emerson put it this way, “Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone.”
What is it that usually keeps us from seeing those larger things that loom ahead of us? Well, it is usually something that we have allowed to get to close to us and it is blocking our vision, it is keeping us from seeing the greater blessing that will come if we will let go of the smaller stuff that is preventing us from focusing on the right things.
This life is just the introduction and the preparatory time of transition into the real life that looms ahead, which is just around the corner for everyone that starts out here in this nursery. The pity is that many let the small things of the nursery keep them from the grandest and most wonderful life that is ahead, those things up close keep them from seeing more valuable things that could be theirs.
Some people see a sunrise and another day, and some see a glorious and transcendent globe of brilliant light that comes every morning with the angels of Glory shouting, “Glory to God in the Highest, Holy, Holy is the Lord God all mighty. You see small things can even block out the sun. Arthur Schopenhauer the noted German Philosopher, saw this in mankind, his words were these, “Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.”
What is it that you see this morning? How far ahead are you looking? Is it just to the next payday, the next vacation or the next party? What are you focused on? Thomas Carlyle said this, “I have seen gleams in the face and eyes of the man that have let you look into a higher country.” This morning if you will turn your eyes upon Jesus, you will look into the gleaming eyes of glory that will allow you and I to see the Big Things of God, if we take the small things away that block our vision of His face…God Bless.

Pastor William