March 28, 2007
Turning a Blind Eye
I found this interesting trivia in The Facts on File: Dictionary of Clichés. “In 1801 Lord Horatio Nelson, second in command of the English fleet, was besieging Copenhagen. The flagship had sent up signals for the fleet to withdraw, but Nelson wanted badly to attack. He had lost the sight of one eye at Calvi, so he put the glass to the blind eye and told his lieutenant he could see no signals to withdraw. His attack forced the French to surrender, a major victory.” There are instances in our lives, and in the life of the church, when we want something so badly, we turn a blind eye. We ignore the Spirit, refuse wise counsel and look past red flags. I doubt God is impressed with the blind eye excuse from His children.
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3 comments:
Gail;
-----The blind eye is like a gun. It gets blamed for the damage, but it does not get credited for victory. Lord Horatio had a subordination problem, granted, but he also had a victory. Lucky for him. Or God was with him? If God was with Him He found the blind eye useful. But that is the nature of God’s perfection, He makes use of even our shortcomings. He does not abandon His objectives because His people make decisions like idiots. He evidently had an objective He needed reached, and found Lord Horatio’s fool-heartiness a useful stone to step on.
-----This very much reminds me of the situation happening in your church and in other mega-churches around the world. Blind eyes are being turned to significant, Scriptural principles of fellowship in order to produce these bloated, buzzing beehives. But even though the sounds and activities proceeding from them are not the symphonic richness you would expect from the depths of careful spiritual lives, at least there is a lot of busy buzzing. Maybe that is all God can exude from the masses of us today.
-----Moreover, the blind eye comes in very handy for living a godly life in this mess of a spiritual environment. If it is not the discouragement of idiot things that I may have done, said, or wrote, it is the distraction of temptations, dangers, and obstacles in my path that often need a blind eye in order for my destination to be reached.
-----Finally, the very need for the blind eye is also, as you have pointed out, a shortcoming. Blinders are often put on a horse to keep its attention forward and to minimize the fright from the hubbub around it. The blinders are necessary not because of the horse’s ability to concentrate on where it is going or its outstanding courage, but rather because of its inability and skittishness. We also would not need the blind eye (when its use is proper) if we did not have our fearful, disbelieving weaknesses. Knowledge of the way things really are is always better than knowledge of nothing. And knowledge does not proceed from blindness. I highly doubt Jesus clenched His eyelids tightly together on His way into the desert, or to the cross.
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The following comment is spam...but it's nice to hear anyway!
Gail
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Turning a Blind Eye":
You got great points there, that's why I always love checking out your blog.
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