Recalibrating My Eyes
Making the Unknowns of Life Clearer through the Lens of the Knowns
What is it about the stars that makes our hearts soar? The vast expanse? The fingerprints of God in creation? The unknown beyond our fingertips?
I’m not sure the reason, and perhaps, hunting down the rationale behind our love of space would kill the love. But love it, I do.
A couple years ago the Hubs bought me a telescope for Christmas. Our telescope has a special “finderscope” attached to it that aids in finding celestial bodies. It makes tracking down planets and even the moon through the telescope easier. But the “finderscope” must be calibrated to work properly. Without calibrating, star gazing can be a frustrating exercise in “hunt and peck.”
Calibrating our “finderscope,” we had to look through it at something that was known to be at least a quarter of a mile away. We had to make sure that what was a relatively close distance away was perfectly in focus and that everything lined up. Only then could we use it to look into the depths of space.
Very interesting and somewhat profound. There had to be a clear, known object to then be able to look at an unknown. There had to be something concrete and unmoving to show us things unfamiliar and at an unknowable distance.
It made me think of the many times in my life that I am faced with unknowns, things I can’t make sense of or account for, things that blur the eyes and baffle our ability to bring them into focus. In those times, what I do know gives me the foundation for what I don’t know.
Like you, I have been through things that have made me question everything I know to be true. In easier times, I knew them unquestioningly. But I’ve struggled through the betrayal of family members, the heartbreak of loss, the crashing down of all for which I had hoped. And in those times, I’ve questioned my lovability, my dreams, my aspirations, even my faith.
But if I can come back to those beliefs that are closest to me, recalibrate my heart to what I know to be true, I can see through the lens of what I know and put the unknowns into proper focus.
It is a choice, and often the hardest choice, to recalibrate my mind to Truth. I may not feel stable or sure of anything, but if I can set my faith on God’s goodness, love and faithfulness, all my unknowns lose the power to shake my core and I can see them with clearer eyes.
God is good. God loves me. God is faithful. It’s those close things – those things that are fixed and immovable – that calibrate our eyes to see all the unknowns in clearer focus.
“…In Your light do we see light.” Psalm 36:9
For more on “What God Taught me through the Boring Parts,” click HERE!