I Don't See What's Wrong With...

I’m defective. I don’t recall for sure when I first discovered the problem, but I know that by the middle of my college years I knew it was there. Perhaps I made the discovery in General Biology lab. It may have been several years later when I became a lab instructor in Anatomy and Physiology. At any rate, I remember seeing Ishihara plates for the first time, and discovering that I was red-green colorblind. All that time in high school while I was identifying plants and animals, the problem was there. In spite of the fact that I enjoyed drawing and painting, I hadn’t noticed anything wrong. But sure enough, once I got those plates of Mr. Ishihara in my hands, there could be no doubt.

A few years later I had an amusing experience involving my colorblindness. I was in the process of applying to several universities for my doctoral program. For some reason, one of the schools required a physical examination, and that examination asked the doctor to evaluate my color vision. A year earlier I’d gone for a pre-induction physical for the Selective Service. I’d been able to correctly identify a pattern in only one of the twelve plates they showed me. In the doctor’s office a year later, upon coming to that question, the doctor proceeded to go around the room pointing to various objects to see if I could identify their colors. He wrote in the answer space: color vision normal.

Of course, looking directly at the colored object proved no problem. You see, red-green colorblindness involves an inability to pick out a pattern of dots of varying shades of red embedded in a field of dots of varying shades of green. If you put a red ball into my hand, I can see that it is red. Toss the same ball out into the middle of the lawn, and I probably won’t notice it if I scan the yard with my eyes. Unless I happen to look directly at a red bird sitting among green leaves, I won’t see it as red. I might see the shape, but won’t notice that it is red. I’m defective, and have been from birth. Until my body is made new when Christ comes for me, I just won’t be able to see the patterns on Mr. Ishihara’s plates.

One evening, a distinguished leader called upon Christ for an interview. The first response the Lord gave Nicodemus was that this member of the Jewish Sanhedrin needed to be born again. Of course, what Christ was referring to was a spiritual rebirth.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I just can’t see what’s wrong with…”? The scriptures point out that spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. Since the fall of mankind, we’ve had vision problems when it comes to spiritual things. Just like my colorblindness will be with me till my body is made new, so our spiritual blindness will remain with us until our spirits are made new through the rebirth by the Spirit. Paul refers to this when he speaks of our becoming a new creation when we yield our lives to the Lord.

I can get along with my colorblindness, and have for many years. I can’t get along with my spiritual blindness; it’s a life and death matter.

By the way, does this tie go with this shirt?

Dr. G