First a back-story. Back in 2007, fresh out of preaching school and into a new work, I was diagnosed with a detached retina. Basically the back lining of my eye (the retina) had torn away from the inner wall of my eye causing extremely distorted vision. I had noticed the vision problem almost a year earlier but after a worthless visit to an eye doctor in Memphis just ignored it. Jump to a year later – I finally decided to pay a visit to my hometown eye doctor and within five minutes he informed me of the detachment. The worst part was that because I had allowed it to remain that way for a year the tear had developed scar tissue running diagonally across the back of my eye which now, even after corrective surgery, causes the light that reflects off the back of the eye to give us our vision to be distorted as well. Thus even after having surgery to correct the detachment as well as cataract surgery (because this condition produces an early cataract) and then finally some clean up with a laser, my vision is still extremely unreliable in my left eye. In fact it is practically worthless. The only reason my overall vision has remained as good as it has is because my right eye (with a contact lens) can compensate.
Now, flash forward three years. Back last year, before moving to Dyersburg, I was driving down the road on the way to work when about a mile or so from my office my right contact starting giving me problems. Anyone who wears contacts knows what I mean. Some speck of dirt or something had found its way into my eye and was now causing me considerable pain. But wait. That problem with my contact was also causing me to temporarily lose that compensated vision. With no where to pull over until the problem was alleviated I was forced to drive down the road with only my one bad eye to give me direction until that speck of dirt could be flushed from my good eye. I’m sure it took only 10-15 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Fortunately all was well and no accidents were caused but that only goes to show you just how dangerous it can be to have unbalanced vision.
Many people have that problem spiritually. They see the grace of God but also see His justice. They understand the importance of encouraging the brethren in righteousness but also to reprove them for their sin. They remember that God has displayed His infinite love upon all men but also consider how much He hates their sin. However, instead of balancing all of these realities in their lives and in the pulpit, because of unbalanced vision they ignore one and gravitate to the other. They either preach God’s grace to the neglect of His justice, or His justice to the neglect of His grace. They provide soothing words of exhortation to their brethren to the neglect of condemning any pertinent sin, or they spend so much time browbeating the brethren over any and all sin, pertinent or not, that they forget to encourage them. They emphasize God’s infinite love to the neglect of His hate for sin, or they emphasize His hate for sin and all the while neglect to tell people that God loves their souls. Everything in life has seemingly become very partisan and extreme in nature, but all the while God weeps over the human condition and pleads with us to see the inherent balance with which He established New Testament Christianity in the first place!
Some of the most unbalanced people in the Bible were the Pharisees and its interesting to see what Jesus said of their vision: “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:13-14). Unbalanced vision is plaguing the church, causing us to lose a true perspective of life and Christianity. These things ought not to be so!