“From a Distance They Saw”
I suffer from myopia, a relatively common condition in which light focuses in front of the retina instead of on it. This is also known as nearsightedness, and can be resolved with corrective lenses. Lots of people are myopic. It’s not really a terrible problem in this day and age, but it is a little annoying when taking out my contacts means I am relinquishing my capacity to read clocks. The opposite problem is hyperopia, farsightedness, which creates its own problems. Again the physical problems related to these conditions are treatable, but I think we have a tendency to take on myopic or hyperopic mindsets regardless of how well we can physically see.
Sometimes, we lack a clear vision of the future. We know time is passing, and we may hope for something good to happen in the near or distant future, but we don’t really know what that looks like. The tedium of work day after day, the stress of our lives as they currently are, the daily rollercoaster of emotions we experience, and hundreds of other factors all contribute to a blurring of our vision. Hope, the light of the future reflecting onto the past, doesn’t hit where we need it to see clearly. We stumble and find ourselves surprised by both good and bad news. We can’t peer forward, so everything is news to us. Perhaps worse, in not knowing where we are supposed to be going, it is difficult to know how to get there. As Seneca said, “If one does not know to which port he is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
Participating in God’s ministry requires us to understand the priorities of God’s Kingdom. To understand those priorities, we must have a sense of what direction God is moving the world. But in order to see that, we need the faith to peer into the future and catch a glimpse of what God is planning. If we are mentally myopic and nearsighted in faith, we get stuck in the cares, troubles, and politics of today and fail to see where God wants us to be tomorrow. We fail to work for the Kingdom of God, because we don’t even know how to work.
Meanwhile, spiritual and mental hyperopia causes problems of a similar nature. Some of us may have such a clear vision of the future that we start to live in it and ignore the present. We know what gifts God will give us tomorrow, so we live as if we have them today, so no more work needs to be done. Either that or we are so excited for how good it will be to live with God in a new world that we give up on the world we live in. We claim that we are residents of heaven and that earth isn’t really our home. We’re just guests and pilgrims in this world. Unfortunately, when we view God’s creation as if it is only transient and doesn’t need our care, we not only make the world worse for future generations but we neglect our God-given duty as stewards for creation.
Sometimes I think we all suffer from both of these conditions at various points. Speaking from personal experience, I know there are times when I daydream the day away, hoping for a future that I do little to bring into existence. Other times I am so focused on what I am doing today that I forget about the direction my work should be taking. Everything just seems random and chaotic without a root to nourish and stabilize the day. We make a lot of mistakes as Christians, but part of that failure is a vision error. When we fail to see properly through the eyes of faith, we struggle to actually fit our faith into the world we inhabit.
Hebrews 11 offers a catalog of heroes of the faith, the great cloud of witnesses who understood their part in God’s story. Verse 13 in particular specifically mentions how they could see distantly into the future God had promised. They know what will come. That is very clear to them. With that unshakable foundation, they are able to act faithfully to God in the world. At first glance, they may appear to be suffering from mental hyperopia. They can see into the future, but they see themselves as only wanderers here and now. However, that isn’t exactly true for the heroes mentioned in this passage. Abraham saw the hope of the future, but he still bought and sold land. He still interceded on behalf of what few righteous people could be found in Sodom. He still worked hard and took care of his family and friends. Abraham used his vision of the future to ground him in his work. He may have been a pilgrim in a strange land, but while he was there, he brought blessing to that land. The same is true of other heroes of the faith. Their vision of the future directs them to impact their corner of the world in their own time.
The future reaches back to have an impact on the present. As much as our current life is impacted by the inspiration of past heroes, so also if we share their vision, the future they saw can change our world today. Hope and faith have power. They are not idle. They shake the world and shape our course. Vision directs our action, and the clearer our vision is, the closer our actions will be to God’s desires for us.
The class before me at Yutan had this for a class motto: “The past is history, the future is a mystery but today is a gift—That’s why they call it ‘the present.’” I’ve heard stuff like this quite frequently throughout my life. People want to remind themselves to give up on the past and future and ground themselves in the here and now. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a good mindset for humans in general but especially for Christians. Our goal should be to make the future as real to us as the present, perhaps even more so. The future should be our foundation, determining how we work in the present. Like chessmasters working backward from an endgame they know they can win to find the right move, we should look at God’s Kingdom as if it were on our doorstep and set our house in order accordingly.
Jesus died to save us from our sins and make us righteous but also to heal our spiritual myopia. For us, the future is not a mystery. The future is real, leaking into the present drop by drop, until the dam breaks and the Kingdom arrives in its full force and splendor. While we wait, through the eyes of faith, we can see what the heroes of old saw, and work with God to make the Kingdom manifest among us.
