“You are ever seeing but not perceiving.”

I’ve often found the phrase Isaiah and Jesus used of seeing but not perceiving to be an interesting phrase. The idea that people can see things right in front of them but not know or understand what they are seeing seemed strange. But I kept thinking about it.

Then I had the opportunity to watch a two-year-old girl. We would take walks in the neighborhood and play in her backyard. I was always pointing things out to her, a white flower, a cardinal, a squirrel, a pretty leaf, all sorts of things. I remembered my mom doing the same for me. She was always pointing out a tree, a bird, or a cloud sometimes for the name and other times for the beauty of it. All of those memories then brought to mind riding in the car with my grandfather. He could spot a hawk almost every trip we made it seemed like. All the while I would have my face pressed to the glass saying, “Where?” It took me a while, but now when I’m driving, I’ll see a hawk in a tree or the top of a street light and I’ll say, “Look, there’s a hawk!” just like my grandfather. Depending on who I’m with some of my passengers will see it too and others won’t.

All of that got me to thinking. I had to be taught how to see hawks. I had to be told where to look for them and what the difference was between a hawk and a vulture. I could be looking at the same woods as my grandfather, but I would not see the hawk because I wasn’t looking for it the right way.

Then on one walk with the girl I was watching, I was marveling at some moss and lichen that cover a tree. I realized that even though I could see the moss and lichen, I did not understand what I was seeing. Was it good for a tree to be covered like that? What would a tree doctor see if they looked at the same tree? Would the tree doctor spot things I did not? Absolutely, he would. He had been trained to understand what he saw, to know the causes and effects, and to know the remedies. I might be able to see, but I needed to be trained to perceive.

Just as I had to help the girl I was watching understand what things were, to help her start to spot birds and animals around her, so I needed help to understand the things that were around me, not just see them. I needed knowledge to understand and knowledge to see otherwise I could look at the same things others were and not see what was right in front of me.  

Both perception and knowledge are important for us to mature. However, both also have to be taught. And this is true also of spiritual things. We have to be taught how to know God, taught how God speaks, taught how He answers prayers, taught how to see what God sees. And we have to see these things in action so that we can look out the window and naturally have our eyes travel to the best places to look. But if we know how God works, then we can see Him everywhere. Even better, we can then point God’s works out to others, so they can see Him too.

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