Kingdom Vision, Suffering, and Waldo

There is so much more to Kingdom Vision than simply seeing.  It’s focused seeing—seeing what God sees as important in an overall scene of earthly pain, discrimination, injustice, disease, hunger, and chaos.  “Focused seeing” doesn’t ignore reality, but it widens the perspective even while examining every detail for Kingdom principles.  What does this look like?

I like analogies.  Did you ever look at the Where’s Waldo pictures?  There were always a bunch of pretenders in the picture whose presence was there to make finding Waldo harder.  They served as a distraction to keep our eyes off of a focused and relentless search for Waldo.  Usually, they didn’t even look like Waldo, but you see red and white and think, “There he is!”  No.  Oooh!  Is that him?  No.  And you keep searching.

But once you see Waldo, you can pick him out right away!

Suffering is a pretender just like all the red/white scarves and skirts and flags, calling attention to itself.

What is our adversary’s singular goal in creating a larger picture of suffering, injustice, chaos, bitterness, strife, and keeping us busy with a whole host of problems?  He wants to lead us to death by distracting us from seeing the redemption God offers in Jesus Christ. Troubles, Jesus tells us, we will have many!  But to take heart, He has overcome the world! (John 16:33)

Suffering both distracts and focuses our sights–they are two sides of the same painful coin.

 He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ (Luke 8:10)

Whew!  Doesn’t that seem a bit unfair?  Not when we think about it this way: For those who choose to see with Kingdom vision and not just our eyes, Jesus (who is far better than Waldo) is in plain sight.  Once you see Jesus, you really do see Him.  You know it’s Him.  Not just what He maybe looks like among a million manmade messiahs and pretenders in a world of suffering, but you see Jesus.  You know Him.

Likewise, when we have Kingdom Vision we see the Way, the Truth, and the Life—even in the midst of chaos.  Parables were just a way of affirming who had already adopted Kingdom Vision and saw the Truth of Christ plainly and clearly, and who among us were still distracted, looking for answers in any old place.  Over the next few days we’ll explore how to have this Kingdom Vision and how it helps us in overcoming suffering.

Sufferings and troubles will come.  But the real question is can you still focus on God’s Truth in Jesus Christ in spite of suffering?