Finding Focus
Repentance literally means to gain a fresh perspective. I can't think of a more literal example of what it means to gain a fresh perspective than getting an eye exam and a new prescription for glasses/contacts. Just like in an eye exam where we try different lenses to see if things get clearer or blurrier, when we repent, we are trying new thoughts, new strategies for existing and thriving in this world to see if we can find a new, clearer way of living. And just like we need frequent eye exams to adjust our glasses to keep up with changes in our vision, we need frequent repentance to keep up with changes in our vision of our purpose in life. I did want to add one more facet to this analogy that I think can be instructive. Sometimes we can have an astigmatism which means that there's no lens that will completely correct the blurriness. The spiritual astigmatisms that we may have to deal with are the thorns in our side, the sins which do easily beset us, the doubts we just can't shake, the habits we just can't break, the tragedies that threaten to swallow us whole, the injustices that seem to prove God doesn't exist or if He does then He is cruelly indifferent to our plight. Repentance and sincere prayer and unshakeable faith can help somewhat in making things less blurry, but we just have to accept that it may require years of patience and trust in the Lord before things become fully clear, if they ever really become clear in this life. But there is some hope. I happen to have an astigmatism and I don't know if this is universal but I suspect it is, but if I fold my index finger so that there's the tiniest pinprick hole and then I peer through that tiny hole with my eye with the astigmatism, everything is perfectly clear. I'm not an optometrist so I couldn't explain why this works but I suspect that it has something to do with the eye being unable to focus on light coming from every direction, but if you give it just one beam of light, then it can focus on that. The point is, if things are too blurry and you don't know how you can keep going on and trusting that it will all work out, just shrink it down to one thing. From the song "The Next Right Thing" from the movie Frozen II: "I won't look too far ahead / It's too much for me to take / But break it down to this next breath, this next step / This next choice is one that I can make / So I'll walk through this night / Stumbling blindly toward the light / And do the next right thing." If things are too blurry, if there is too much information and too many emotions to process, if it seems that try as we might to repent and get a fresh perspective, it never seems to work, then we should shrink it down to that pinhole, that next right step.
