No Going Back

Do you remember those paintings, the ones that just look like a bunch of blotches but hidden within is a three-dimensional image?

When they first came out I thought it was ridiculous and that anyone who said they saw a soaring eagle or a skyline of New York city was either lying to themselves and everyone else or just delusional.  I tried and tried, blurred my eyes, stood like a fool with my nose pressed against the painting at first and then backed up, but still nothing. 

I finally gave up and decided it was exactly as it looked, a bunch of random colour blotches with no other hidden image.

Then one day I was at a friend’s house and they had one.  They gave me a few suggestions for how I could try to see the picture so I tried again.  I allowed my focus to blur, relaxed my eyes and there was a flash of something round, and protruding from the picture.  I startled me so much that I brought my eyes back into focus.  What did I just see?  I tried again.  Suddenly, my eyes came back into focus, except this time I was faced with an image jumping out of the blotches.  I was looking a full moon, hanging over a majestic pine and through the night sky soared an eagle.  Incredible!

‘I see it I see it!’ I shouted.

My sister, who was with me, hadn’t seen it yet.
'Where, how? I can’t see it!’ she was frustrated and a little jealous that I could see it, somewhat doubtful that I actually was seeing something.

I walked her through the steps again and told her how I managed to see the picture. 

I watched as her eyes went from dull to large and bright.
‘I see it I see it! Oh my goodness, how is this possible!’ She exclaimed.

After that night we were a little crazy about seeing these pictures.  We bought a book full of them, ran to the mall where there was a display of them and stood looking at all of them.  You felt as though you could reach out and touch the things in the picture.

From that day on the images that were ‘hidden’ in these blotches, were impossible for me to not see.

So, where am I going with this?

I always wondered what people meant when they said they found Jesus like he had been hiding under the couch or something.  I just didn't get it.

The Kingdom of Heaven is sometimes described as the already and the not yet, the seen and the unseen.  Before I ‘saw’ I thought that those who could see were like the people who claimed to see something in those paintings.  They were either delusional, or lying to themselves.

I was blind but now I see....

For me the moment of believing came in a flash, just like seeing the images in those paintings.  I was blind to it, and then I wasn’t.  It all became known, even though I didn’t have all the answers, I now could see what was always there, I believed.

How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed.

In order to see those images, I had to re-learn how to see, I had to un-train my trained eyes, not to see what something looked like on the surface, but to see beyond it.  Once I saw the images in those paintings, there was no going back, I couldn’t un-see them. 

I once was lost but now I’m found.

Before I believed, I saw most Christians (and ironically most especially missionaries) as people who just wanted to bend you to their way of thinking, they'd been brain washed and now they were bent on shoving religion down other's throats.  Why couldn’t they just leave people to their own beliefs?

Here’s the thing.  When I was able to see the images in those paintings, I wanted to help everyone else see those images, not because I wanted to push something on them but because it was AMAZING.

When you begin to understand the magnitude of believing and see how it has changed your life from a seemingly random arrangement of blotches of colour, into a beautiful three-dimensional piece of art, you want others to have it too, because it’s GOOD, it’s more than good….

It’s AMAZING!

Now scroll back up, look at the blotches, blur your eyes and then relax.  Do you see him? He's in there, waiting, he's been seeing you your whole life, just waiting for you to be able to see him.