20-20 Vision
By Grant Gaines
I really enjoy playing sports. I love playing football, lacrosse, running, basketball, tennis, baseball, swimming and the list goes on and on. To go along with my love for sports, I love being outdoors in the hot summer sun which often requires sunglasses. And do you know what you get when you combined sunglasses, heat, and a lot of physical activities? Sweaty, smudgy glasses.
But here’s the thing about my dirty glasses, I’m usually not the one who sees all the sweat and grime on my glasses, others do. I have a tendency of looking straight through the mucky lenses and focusing on whatever it is that I’m doing at the moment rather than at the gunk that is right before my eyes. It’s only after I take off my glasses and notice how crystal clear everything is that I realize how filthy my glasses are. My problem is that I’m more focused on what’s far off in the distance than what is right in front of me. Peter had the same problem.
In John 13 Jesus begins to give His final marching orders to His disciples as He knows He is only mere hours away from the cross (John 13:1). As you could imagine, Jesus was starting to get pretty picky with what information and commands He chose to pass along to His followers knowing that His time was short. With the quickly draining hourglass in mind, Jesus states two things in John 13:33-34 (NIV), “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for Me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another”.
The two things Jesus wanted to emphasize to His disciples as He neared His victorious death was that He was going where the disciples could not yet go (John 13:33) and for His followers to love each other (John 13:34). Now of those two things, which is easier for you to understand: “Where I am going, you cannot come,” or, “Love one another”? One statement is a transcendent, abstract, upper-level thought while the other is a black and white command.
You would think that the disciples would take hold of the second part of Jesus’s message and run with it with no questions asked. “’Love one another,’” the disciples likely thought, “That’s easily understood and a big task to undertake, let’s get started!”
But not Peter. Peter wasn’t satisfied with the known – the “love one another” part – he wanted to know the unknown. So when he was presented with Jesus’s two statements from John 13:33-34, the topic of his only two questions for Jesus were, “…Lord where are you going…Lord, why can’t I follow You?…” (John 13:36-37, NIV).
Peter was more focused on what he didn’t know than what he did know. He was more focused on what was unclear than what was clear. He was more focused on the question mark than on the exclamation point.
I wonder if you, like me, have the tendency to do the same. Do you have a tendency of focusing on next year’s vacation, next week’s schedule, or the next day’s provisions rather than being aware of the, “…good works which [God] has prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV) that are right before you? If that’s the case, you need to heed the advice I so often receive when running around in the summer sun – clean off your glasses! Focus on what you do know rather than on what you don’t know.
So what do we know? We know that Jesus has given us all the command in John 13:34-35 (NIV) to, “… Love one another. As [He] has loved [us], so [we] must love one another. By this everyone will know that [we] are [His] disciples, if [we] love one another.”
There it is. That’s your daily plan for every day of the rest of your life. Go ahead and mark it on your calendar – love others just as Christ has loved us. Don’t just treat others how you want to be treated, love as God has loved you – selflessly, sacrificially, perfectly, impartially.
That’s what you should be focused on, loving others. Don’t let your mind focus on the questions of tomorrow when you know what your mission is today. Tomorrow is a question mark, today is a certainty. After all, wasn’t it Jesus who told us, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself…” (Matthew 6:34, NIV)? Don’t worry about where you’re going to go to college, who you’re going to marry, or where you’re going to spend your next paycheck. Instead, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” by doing what He has commanded us – to love others, being confident that God is faithful and, “…all these things will be added to you as well” (Matthew 6:33, NIV).
Don’t be like me with the smoggy sunglasses or like Peter in John 13 by missing what is directly in front of you. God has called you to love others, today.
Do you need to clean your glasses?
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
