Blind Spots
(“Prepare
the way of the Lord, make
his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and
hill shall be made low.” Luke 3:4-5)
Way back in 1973 I was
in my first major car crash. Only 18, I was driving home from my job at a
pharmacy in Lafayette, Ca, to Concord. I was on the freeway and approached the
split that veering left would take me home or to the right, take me further
south. In those days I drove a blue Volkswagen van with tie-dye curtains. I had
not merged into the left lane soon enough.
Driving in the second
lane from the right, I needed to make my way one more lane to the left. I
glanced in my truck-style sideview mirrors, then my rearview mirror and once
more to the left one. I saw no cars. I had already set my blinker and began to
merge into the next lane.
Suddenly I heard the
angry honk of a car almost immediately to my left. I quickly turned the
steering wheel to the right, applied the brakes a bit, and went into an out of
control fishtail. I was now beyond the median that began to separate the two
freeways.
At around 50 mph my
right tires hit the median, and though it was no more than six inches high at
this point, my van flipped to its side and skid across two lanes of traffic
stopping on the right-hand shoulder.
Inside the van I was
scared to death, and the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. A coffee
mug lost its attachment to gravity and cracked into my forehead. Pencils,
papers and a couple of books were suspended around me for what couldn’t have
been more than a few seconds. Besides a scratch to my head, I was unhurt. I did
call a friend to take me to the hospital and got to wear a lovely foam collar
for a few weeks. Things could have been much worse. As the van skid across two
lanes of traffic it was also leaking gasoline. The frame metal was sparking
like the Fourth of July. I was extremely fortunate to escape a conflagration.
John the Baptist is
telling people to “Prepare the way of the Lord.” He doesn’t specifically
mention blind spots, but I think the image may be useful when we think about
our own heart preparation.
He speaks of two things
that should happen (among others): every valley should be filled, and every
mountain should be made low. I think there may be blind spots associated with
those who feel like their life is in the lowlands, and other blind spots for
those who think they live on the mountain.
The valleys need to be
“filled”. I think the valleys can refer to any disparaging thought about
ourselves that keeps us from receiving the Lord’s best into our lives. Imagine
someone who has constantly been told that they will never measure up, or they
don’t have enough talent to pursue a dream. Or even worse, that God will punish
them if the do not change. (So, they try with all their might to change, find
they cannot, and determine they are outside of God’s blessing.)
I am reading a biography
of the American First Ladies. Do you know that two of them lost children; one
in a railroad accident where she saw a piece of metal take off the back of her
beloved son’s head. For the rest of her life she believed God was punishing her
because she had not been a good enough mother to that son!
She was a valley that
needed to be “filled”. But imagine someone coming to her and saying, “I’ve lost
a child too. You’ve just got to buck up, get on with your life. Stop
complaining. I never complained.” Or, even worse, someone who has lost two children
tells her the same thing. Think about it. Will these comments “fill” her
valley? No, they dig it only deeper.
This person will now
believe that, not only is God punishing her, but that she doesn’t even have the
inner resolve to make life better. Those in the valley need to be filled, not
given an earful. People are in valleys for may reasons. Mental illness can
contribute to it, so can addiction, and of course, indulgent sin. But the
answer for the one in the valley is filling.
Their blind spot is the
inability to see God’s grace and mercy that are just up the road for them. If
you are in a valley, please trust God wants to fill you with His grace. Examine
the gospels and see how Jesus treated everyone who found themselves in the low
places of life.
The other blind spot is
just as prevalent and maybe harder to self-assess. When we are the mountain
that needs to be made low, we usually feel like we are doing just fine in life.
We may be a successful businessperson. A doctor with a burgeoning practice. A
politician who is winning. We may even be and average man or woman, but we are
pleased that we have kept all the rules that we think are
important.
Nationalism is such a
mountain. So is a strict reading of certain Bible passages that attempt to
make other people submit to them. If it is “Israel first”, we
have excluded 99 percent of the world’s population. If it is “America first”,
the blind spot is just the same. And, when you are on the mountain, you have
little empathy for anyone who, for whatever reason, is still down there in the
valley slipping upon mountain trails.
Mountain people are the
ones who lecture valley people about how to get out of the valley. Mountain
people do not venture down, they wait for others through sheer effort, to make
their way up the rugged slopes.
But that is not God’s
solution. His solution, in preparing our way for the Lord, is that the mountain
must come down! It’s as if He is saying, “If you won’t come down off your high
righteous peak, then I’ll have to bring you and the mountain down to everyone
else’s level.”
What is your blind spot
today? Do you think you do not deserve anything from God? Well, you are wrong.
You deserve love from the very One who created you. And you don’t earn it, you
already have it because of God’s nature. That is why Jesus came; to show us the
nature of Father God. Let Him fill up the low place, breathe again, and step
into life.
Are you on the mountain?
Have you lived surrounded by a Christian mindset for so long that you can no
longer identify with people who struggle? Then hightail it off that mountain as
quickly as you can! Sit with the mentally ill. Love the outcast. Welcome the
immigrant and stranger. Comfort the transsexual who struggles to
know their way in life. Stop playing it safe.
Once valleys are lifted
and mountains are torn down, that puts us all on the same level, doesn’t it?
And guess what, that is exactly what God intended.
