Blind or Just Short-sighted

Over my 20+ years of employment with the Federal government, I had many co-workers from different regions of the U.S.  One time a co-worker from the South, said: “I miss magnolia trees; there are none in California.”  Of course that’s false—we had a magnolia tree in our yard at home. Another time, a co-worker told me there were no drive-up banks in California.  Both of these ‘foreigners’ had come to false conclusions based on a small vantage point. They were short-sighted. 

Short-sightedness began with Adam, who, at Eve's beckoning, succumbed to the wiles of forbidden fruit (symbol of desires that claim our immediate attention) and concluded it was a better offer than God’s long-term plans.  In hindsight, you and I ask astonishingly, ‘how could anyone be so short-sighted?’

But are we really any less so?’ Whether by ignorance or willful neglect of God’s truth, all of us have a propensity for short-sightedness, “falling short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). After reminding his readers they have inherited God’s divine nature, whose qualities include moral excellence, self-control, perseverance, godliness, love, etc., Peter tells them if we were not growing in these, they must be either blind or shortsighted” (2 Pet 1:9). Let us examine, honestly, our own short-sightedness. “Open our eyes so we may behold these wonderful things” (Ps. 119:18).