Senses don't FAIL me NOW!

Last week I had a cold. WHENEVER I get a cold, it always seems to go to my eyes. So my eyes start watering, and watering and watering. I FEEL like a 4 year old kid with a cold because I can't get them to stop. (This is the place normally in my blog that I would post a picture...but TRUST me, you don't really want to see how pathetic I looked last week, so here's some mountain of Kleenex!.)

This is what my desk and home and car looked like with my eyes and nose.....

But my watery eyes got me thinking- what is it with our eyes? We have 5 senses BUT the one we generally trust the most is our eyes. Sure we can smell something, or touch something- but it seems like until we actually SEE it, we just can't believe something.

The big problem with our reliance upon our eyes is right now we can't actually SEE God. We can see the works of God around us, we can see God working through other people and us, but we can't tangibly SEE God. So if we can't trust our eyes to see God, how can we really TRUST God?

Well first, we can STILL use our eyes to look to Scripture. There is a great Bible story of someone else NOT trusting until they could see something. That person was Thomas. Now Thomas gets a bad rap for being a doubter! Thomas couldn't believe that Jesus came back from the dead until he could actually SEE Jesus for himself. I'll be honest- I don't blame Thomas! People don't come back from the dead, so if someone told me that happened, I'd probably be just LIKE Thomas- I would need to see it.

AND here's the great thing about God- God knows Thomas need. So Jesus appears to Thomas. Here's the Scripture from John 20: ²⁶ A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
²⁸ Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
²⁹ Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

As believers of God in the present age, we now fall into the "blessed" category. Why? Because we haven't gotten to visibly see Jesus like the disciples did- BUT we still believe in God. 

See our eyes are great- but they are just a sense. Go to an illusionist or watch someone do a card trick. They are tricking your eyes. Any sense can be altered and tricked, but do you know what can't be tricked? Our heart. See in our heart, the Holy Spirit resides also. The Holy Spirit helps and encourages us daily to believe EVEN though we can't actually SEE or TOUCH God. 

And if you want to use your eyes this week to do some great reading- check out these stories about blind people who Jesus healed. AND the great part with these stories? These people had faith in Jesus BEFORE they were healed and could see Him.  
* A Blind Beggar Believes
* A Man BORN Blind is Healed
 

So remember- while sight is great- it's just 1 of the 5 senses we have been blessed with. A GREATER blessing than any of these is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us to believe in God every day, even when we do not see.