Welcome to Joni and Friends. I’m your host, Joni Eareckson Tada.
I have a friend named Peter who, at about the age of five years old, he lost his sight. It was, in fact, what drove little Peter to embrace Jesus at a very early age. Even after he began going to school, this blind boy had the sweetest spirit – his parents said he hardly ever complained. When he became a teenager, the most amazing thing happened. He had surgery performed which gave him back his sight. Not 100% sight, not 20/20 vision, but enough for him to see the faces of his friends and family – he hadn’t seen any of these people since the age of five. I mean, suddenly streets and trees and fields and clouds, and best of all, he saw color. And I recall Peter saying to me, “Joni, I had forgotten. I never realized how yellow could be so, well so yellow.”
For all the years he had been blind, God had shaped and fashioned Peter’s character in a most remarkable way. He had a life verse, 2 Corinthians 5:7, which says, “We live by faith, not by sight.” Peter would tell me that for him, faith was a kind of substitute for sight. For all the years he was blind, there were so many things he could not physically see. But in all that time, he wanted to develop his spiritual sight. Peter’s faith gave substance to the things he hoped for – his faith brought him so much closer into contact with the unseen world that at times, he told me, he felt as though he were already living in an unseen world of heavenly hosts, and the presence of Christ, a world of angels and a whole universe in plain sight, and the kingdom of God, and so much more. For Peter, his faith made the future and the distant things (all those things I just mentioned), it made them seem very near and very real. His faith removed all intervening time and transported him into this glorious world of which only a few of us catch a glimpse.
As you can tell, my friend is a man of great faith. And he will tell you to this day that for all those years he was blind, those years of physical darkness they helped him to realize his true position as a pilgrim on this earth. His blindness helped him turn his back on so many worldly temptations – most of which he couldn’t see anyway.
You know, as I’ve listened to my friend, Peter, these many years, I admire – I almost envy – his insights. He truly does live by faith and not by sight. Now, I’m not asking for blindness. I’ve got enough on my hands with quadriplegia and paralysis, but I would do well to let that – my own hardships – give substance to a world of unseen things. Knowing Peter has helped me to understand that what seems so real, so tangible, and so solid here on earth, well, one day it will all pass away. And that which has always existed – those unseen divine realities all around us – will come into sharp focus and we will truly see life as God has always intended it to be. Until then, may we walk less by sight, and more by the kind of faith in Christ my friend, Peter, enjoys.
Friend, drop me a line on Joni’s Corner at joniandfriends.org or you can always contact us at P.O. Box 3333, Agoura Hills, CA 91376.
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JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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