2020 Vision
Happy New Year!
If I could choose I would sooner have a dental check-up than an eye test.
‘Which is clearer, the figure at the top or the one on the bottom?’
‘I’m sorry … I’m not sure.’
Soon the lights make my head fuzzy, my eyes smart with tears. I want to ask if we can leave this for another day.
The longsuffering optician scribbles symbols on a card, their significance escapes me.
He didn’t write 20/20. The clarity and sharpness of my vision didn’t merit that. The ordeal is over. Happily eye tests are less frequent than dental check-ups.
But for the eyes of my heart I recognise I need frequent assessment of the clarity of my vision. And the year 2020 seems an excellent opportunity to ask myself some searching questions:
- How do I see the work that I do?
- How do I see my pupils?
- How do I see the subject I teach?
One of my favourite passages in the Bible is in 2 Kings 6 where Elisha’s servant, in the middle of preparing breakfast looks up and sees the hills around Dothan covered in a vast army of horses and chariots. In a panic, feeling that his master’s hours are numbered he screams at Elisha, ‘What are we going to do?’
Elisha knows the only way to calm his servant is to ask God to give him clear vision. ‘Lord open his eyes,’ he prays. And when Elisha’s prayer is answered the servant sees, in sharp focus, that the army protecting his master is far greater than the enemy’s army.
Do I see my work as given to me by the God of heaven and earth and as such having profound dignity whatever the task I am assigned? Moment by moment I represent the Eternal Creator God in the place he has appointed for me. My work is neither for self-satisfaction nor for self-aggrandisement but for the glory of God.
Do I see each of my pupils made to reflect the glory of the one who has created them? As I scan their names on my screen each morning do I yearn for them as their Creator does, longing that one day they will kneel in worship at the feet of King Jesus?
And my subject matter – Have I begun to see it like those in the secular culture whose air I breathe, as if it had nothing to do with God? Or do I have that quiet assurance that everything I teach is His, His creational design, His laws, His handiwork created for me to uncover for the children.
I pray that in 2020 we will see, in sharp focus and with increasing clarity that God has placed us in our particular sphere of service to honour the King, and that in humility we would recognise that without Him we would have nothing to teach.
‘We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’ 2 Corinthians 4.18
How was your eye-test?
Happy 2020!
Megan Patterson
January 2020
[All blogs on our website are the personal view of the writer and do not necessarily represent a position taken by CVE Scotland.]
