WORKING ON OUR VISION

(Tuesday, October 31)

“The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is single (ἁπλοῦς, without duplicity or without many parts), your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad/evil, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” (Lk 11:34-35)

I need to take care of the “lamp” that is my “eye,” which is my perspective. It is my way of seeing; my “vision” of God (Theoptia), myself, and everything. Nowadays in the Orthodox Church we hear a lot about *Theosis*, as the ultimate purpose of Christian life, but *Theoptia* (meaning *seeing God* in Greek), which is no less an important purpose of Tradition, gets a lot less press. We are consistently to be “taking heed” to dust off and clean the “lamp” that is our vision of God, lest we lose sight of His real presence in our lives. Whenever we lose sight of Him, our vision of everything else becomes confused, tends to be self-centered, or centered on something(s) or someone(s) else, and we begin to miss the whole point of our existence; to “miss the mark” that God has set before us.

This morning, let me take a moment to clean any dust or rust that may have accumulated on my heart, like self-centered fears and other burdens, which obfuscate God’s loving presence in my life. Let me hand over to Him my strengths and weaknesses, noting both with the gentle realism that is humility. And let me move forward into my day not alone, but in the presence of God, Who sees me and wants me to see Him, amidst all my challenges today, that I may be blessed and grow in His light and His promise: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”