blessed eyes

I get involved in a lot of conversations about competitive advantages. I suppose that's natural, in the world of business. We're one of several choice available for customers, and our future as a company depends on a certain percentage of them opting for us. Anything that tips the scales in our favor is helpful.

A key advantage for any business is greater knowledge of the overall marketplace and what the future is likely to bring. Known as business intelligence, this kind of information is probably the most highly valued advantage. So we talk about that a lot.

I was in one of those conversations recently, and it came to mind again as I read this, from Matthew 13:16-17: "But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

Any contemporary Christian has a huge advantage over all the saints and prophets of the Old Testament: we know about Jesus. We have the whole story, preserved for us by four different eyewitnesses. We have many of Jesus own words, helpfully highlighted in red for us in many of our Bibles. We have letter upon letter from apostles to the new Christian church helping us understand all the implications of Jesus' birth, death and resurrection.

Beyond that, we have the continuous presence of the Holy Spirit, that aspect of God sent to counsel us through all the what-ifs of each of our ordinary days. We have the cross-won privilege of going to the Holy of Holies any time we want to petition God, and we have the involvement of Jesus, our Savior/High Priest to ensure that our prayers are appropriate.

Talk about an advantage! Oh, we're not in competition with those saints of old, but we are in the same fight for our souls that they were in. And we fight with a great deal more assurance, or we should.

I can't imagine a business squandering such an advantage in not just information, but in certainty. So why do I so often live without using it? It's not like I want to lose this fight, so what am I thinking?

I think that's the struggle of faith - to remember that at God's side, in Jesus' service, my advantages are so overwhelming that I can't lose. The Father of Lies whispers doubt in my ears, so that often, like Peter, my attention goes from the Master of the Wind and Waves to the storm.

In the end, then, it's a matter of focus. It's a matter of where I keep my eyes, these blessed eyes that can see what the Old Testament faith heroes only longed for: the great good news of the risen Christ.