I’ve had poor vision for my entire life…when I wake up in the morning the world is blurry and confusing…my first instinct when I wake up is to reach for my glasses so that I can make sense of the world around me.
Her description of the Israelites at the time of Christ illustrates the problem with focusing on keeping and enforcing rules as Elder Uchtdorf some about before her.
I’ve had poor eyesight for as long as I can remember and have always needed the aid of prescription lenses to correct my vision. When I open my eyes every morning, the world appears very disorienting. Everything is out of focus, grainy, and distorted. Even my dear husband is more reminiscent of an abstract portrait than the well-loved and comforting figure he really is! My reflexive need, before I do anything else at the start of my day, is to reach for my glasses to help me make sense of my surroundings and enjoy a more vibrant experience as they help me navigate throughout my day.
Over the years, I’ve come to recognize that this behavior illustrates my daily dependence on two things: first, a tool that helps me to clarify, focus, and ground the world around me; and second, a need for tangible guidance to continually point me in the right direction. This simple, routine practice mirrors to me a significant observation about our relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ.
This reminds me of Isaac’s reaction yesterday when we picked up his new glasses after 3 weeks of him living without glasses.
To help us to remain fixed and heading in the right direction, the Savior invites us to see our lives through Him in order to see more of Him in our lives.
The law of Moses was given to the early Israelites as a preparatory gospel, designed to ready the people for a higher covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The law, rich with symbolism pointing believers to “look forward to the coming” and Atonement of Jesus Christ, was meant to help the people of Israel focus on the Savior by practicing faith in Him, His sacrifice, and His laws and commandments in their lives—it was intended to bring them to a greater understanding of their Redeemer.
Just as we are today, God’s ancient people were invited to see their lives through Him in order to see more of Him in their lives. But by the time of the Savior’s ministry, the Israelites had lost sight of Christ in their observances, setting Him aside and adding to the law unauthorized practices that had no instructive symbolism pointing to the true and only source of their salvation and redemption—Jesus Christ.
The everyday world of the Israelites had become disoriented and obscure. The children of Israel, in this state, believed that the practices and rituals of the law were the path to personal salvation and in part reduced the law of Moses to a set of protocols administered to rule civilian life. This required the Savior to restore focus and clarity to His gospel.
Sometimes the world gets out of focus not because we don’t have the tools to see clearly but because we choose not to use them.
I learned then, as I know now, that our Savior, Jesus Christ, directs our feet to meetinghouses each week to partake of His sacrament, to the house of the Lord to make covenants with Him, to the scriptures and teachings of prophets to learn of His words. He directs our mouths to testify of Him, our hands to lift and serve as He would lift and serve, our eyes to see the world and each other as He does—“as they really are, and … as they really will be.” And as we allow Him to direct us in all things, we receive testimony that “all things denote there is a God,” because where we look for Him we will find Him—each and every day.
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