I wear contact lenses nearly every day. I love those helpful little guys, but yesterday there was something on my left contact that was irritating my eye like crazy. Every blink, every movement of my eye kept reminding me of its presence. I kept shifting the contact, as if that would help. I tried rotating it. I even started using my eyelid as some sort of tool to move or remove whatever it was that was not supposed to be in there. It was to no avail. I knew that the only way to truly solve the issue would be for me to remove the contact and rinse it off with solution.
I was thinking about that, and I feel like we are like a contact lens, if an eyeball is the world. As Christians, we are on the world to help it see more clearly the greatest and most important truth out there. That’s now our main purpose. But, over time, as is natural when we have been stuck on and immersed in a place for a while, the irritants of the world start clinging to us. We begin to take on dirt and debris that we were never intended to absorb. As more debris begins to build up, it will lessen our ability to help the world clearly see the truth. In fact, we might pick up so much junk that we are only making matters worse by clouding everything into obscurity. We could end up serving more against our initial cause than for it. We could be more a burden to the world than a blessing. And it could happen to any of us.
The thing is, we can’t just shift ourselves around, move or try to adjust some select pieces of our lives, and successfully get rid of that junk while we’re still hung up on the world. Nothing we do on our own will really and eternally fix our issues, especially while we remain glued to the world. The issues can be resolved, we can be truly fixed, only when our hearts are no longer focused solely on worldly matters. When we aren’t attached so entirely to this world. We are only truly redeemed when the Lord helps us out and rinses us off. Each one of us has the opportunity to be rinsed clean once and for all. Even after that, we still need routine care to ensure that we can still be reliable lenses for the world. Just as I take out my contacts each night to soak them in cleansing solution, so we likewise need to remove ourselves from the stress, cares, demands of this world on a regular basis to focus on the Lord and recalibrate ourselves. It’s so easy to keep getting grimy and muddied up by everything negative around us, by Satan, by our very own human natures. Let’s be sure to soak in God’s Word, in time with Him, in prayer, in devotion and reflection time so that we can become ever clearer, so we can better resist all that junk, so that God is able to use us in ways that help the whole world see Him in wonderful and powerful ways.
I never anticipated comparing the Most High King to something as mundane as contact solution, but that I did in this whole analogy. He is our only Solution. He is our only method of true redemption. Of becoming clean and of maintaining any sense of clarity and ultimate purpose in this world. Of providing a true benefit to others while we are on this planet. Only by His Spirit are we able to help the world to see Him more clearly.
Don’t neglect or underestimate the importance of detaching every so often and soaking up time with the Lord. He’s the only One who can give you what you need… maybe in a way you aren’t even fully aware of yet. Get rinsed and get ready for a whole new view on life.
1 John 1:8-10, HLC
sacred strokes 