The New Doctrine.11

"I have come into this world that the blind might see, and they that boast of their vision might become aware of the blindness that has befallen them."

--Jesus

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey touches on how important "vision" is. Habit 2 is based on imagination--the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice.

"There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen." (for more see:  https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits-habit2.php)

Could this be the concept Jesus had in mind when he challenged his hearers to "see"? More importantly, and vital to the human condition: to see as God sees. As MacDonald puts it: " He lived upon a higher spiritual platform than [we] understand, acted from a height of the virtues [we would earnestly claim for ourselves], loftier than [our] eyes can scale. His Himalays are not visible from [our] sand-heaps.


"God is not a God that hides, but a God that reveals. His

whole work in relation to the creatures he has made-and where else can lie his work-is revelation-the giving them truth, the showing of himself to them, that they may know him, and come nearer and nearer to him, and so he have his children more and more of companions to him. That we are in the dark about anything is never because he hides it, but because we are not yet such that he is able to reveal that thing to us."

So the real question is: do we really want to see things, especially the things inside of us, the way God (and others) see them? 

 Ask yourself these questions:

• am I truly prepared to encounter exposure as the general unveiling of things must bring? 
• am I willing for the truth whatever it be? 
• have I a conscience so void of offence, have I a heart so pure and clean, that I fear no fullest exposure of what is in me to the gaze of men and angels? (As to God, he knows it all now!) 
• do I so love the truth and the right, that I welcome, or at least submit willingly to the idea of an exposure of what in me is yet unknown to myself-an exposure that may redound to the glory of the truth by making me ashamed and humble? 
• what if I thought others incorrectly judged me for such & such a thing, and were looking forward to God's judgment to set them right, only to find that, even if it let others off the hook for their contempt or condemnation, it made me true and right by revealing what in me was false? 
• am I willing to be made glad that I was wrong when I thought others were wrong? 

If you can with such submission face the revelation of things hid, then you are of the truth, and need not be afraid; for, whatever comes, it will and can only make you more true and humble and pure."

Adapted from George MacDonald, The Final UnMasking