I had a dream. (No, not that one…) I had a dream that for some reason I went blind. Some clarification is needed here. If you’ve ever seen my glasses I wear at night once the contacts go out, you’ll know this isn’t a far reaching idea. These things are old school- the last frames I had before switching to contacts… in 1994. I don’t think the technology (or my parents’ budget) was where it needed to be to make my glasses not look like things to see far away… like to planets. Or the future.
But in the dream I had, I was really blind. I don’t remember much about most of my dreams, but in this one I remember the blindness being totally new to me. I was trying to figure the whole thing out. There were several things I had to learn, or re-learn, to do. Driving was one… no, just kidding. Things like walking around the house were tough. With a baby and a two year old, clear paths aren’t the norm. Making coffee was a different endeavor. Getting dressed was tough, too. What if Jenn had already left for work? It would take a whole new system of organization to ensure I wasn’t totally mismatched! Sadly, my sense of fashion is also not too far of a stretch from this dream-reality.
One thing that I realized would change was pretty scary, too. I wouldn’t be able to read the Bible! Now, I know there are audio and Braille versions out there. The thing I realized is from the aspect of having God’s word hidden in my heart. I’m talking about laziness here… being blind to the gift that God has given us! What good does a concordance do to a blind person? That whole scenario of, “Oh, I remember a verse that says something like ______. Let me look that up.” would be gone. It hit me that I’ve really neglected the memorization aspect that Psalm 119:11 talks about: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
In countries that face no persecution for owning, reading, publicly using, and talking about the Bible we don’t see any application for this. There are countless believers in countries where none of these things are allowed. For them, to obtain even a page of Scripture is a great occasion. I’m sure they don’t waste the moment by just reading it and then giving it little or no thought. I’m sure they pore over it, and literally hide it in their hearts so that it can’t be taken away- even if the physical printed version is. The next few verses of Ps. 119 talk about God teaching us and of recounting, meditating and considering, delighting, and not neglecting the word. I wonder how much of that we are really doing today.
If, like in my dream, you suddenly became blind… how would you feel about what you have already hidden of God’s word?
Until next time!
Shedding Light 