Perfect Vision

2020.  The end of a decade.  Where did the last 9 years go?

What do we see in the coming year, or the next 5 or 10 years?  Impossible to predict.

We can always speculate.  Keeping up with politics leads to a lot of guessing, but in such a volatile political atmosphere it’s much easier to take a “wait and see” approach.  But that leaves us with a lot of uncertainty and apprehension.

As Christians, we don’t really need to guess or speculate.

There’s another meaning for the term 2020– it’s 20/20.  The term we use to describe “perfect vision.”  It comes from the visual acuity scale created in 1862 by Hermann Snellen, a Dutch ophthalmologist.   The eye chart with the different size letters on it is called a “Snellen Chart”  and has been standardized both in America and Europe.  The first number in the fraction is the 20 foot measurement (6 meters in Europe) at which the tests are given.  The second number indicates your ability (or inability) to read each line, or your visual acuity.

One of the lower rows of letters corresponds to 20/20 acuity.  As you go up the chart it relates to less visual acuity, until you get to the large “E” at the top.  If that’s the only letter you can make out, well, you’re legally blind with 20/200 visual acuity.  Sorry.  If you can read lower lines — below the 20/20 line — your eyesight might be 20/15 or 20/10, etc., indicating better-than-normal-human acuity.

Consider what it would be like to have better-than-average foresight.  If you could accurately guess what stock to buy, what the weather is going to be, what your wife wants for Christmas or her birthday, etc.  No more guess work, no more worrying, no more “what if” moments of speculative concern.

That would be great, wouldn’t it?  Think of the stress that would disappear!

Think how boring that would be!!!

We have One who actually has better-than-perfect vision with Whom and to Whom we can turn any time day or night.  God exists outside of time.  He knows exactly what is going to happen when.  And, since He knows, He is NEVER caught off guard, never surprised, never taken aback with circumstances, never has an “OH, NO!!” moment;  He can lead us through anything.

So—- why don’t we trust HIM to see what’s in our future, and let HIM worry about it? (not that He worries)

To repeat:

There is nothing — NOTHING — that is going to happen in 2020 (or ever) that will surprise God because God has Perfect Vision.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians:

¹⁵ For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people,

¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,

¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength ²⁰ he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,

²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

To have a Happy New Year, let’s trust God to show us what we need to do, when we need to do it, and where we need to go to do it.  Trust in His perfect vision.