Season 5 Timing: The Relationship Between Vision & Time

HE will teach us a new way of seeing time!

In this episode of Vision in the Valley, I discuss the relationship between time and vision. I share personal dreams that led to revelations about understanding one's purpose. The dreams involving wristwatches and eyeglasses symbolize a deeper understanding of time and clarity. The discussion also extends to the visually impaired, emphasizing the importance of spatial awareness and the tools that aid them, such as chirping crosswalks. 
The Chicago Lighthouse's efforts to empower the visually impaired and the concept of spiritual spatial awareness are highlighted. The narrative emphasizes the idea of trusting the process and time for clearer vision, using faith-based perspectives and anecdotes from 'The Chosen' TV series to illustrate these points.

Transcript

Welcome back to Vision in the Valley. We're talking about time in this season and what I've learned is that there's a connection or a relationship between time and vision.  I had a couple of dreams a few months apart that ultimately led me to this revelation. One evening I dreamt of my then office mate and she was moving about the office on roller skates. 

There was a big case of wristwatches on the conference table and no one in the office seemed to be necessarily interested in them but my eyes were affixed on the cases. I'm not sure if it was because they were shiny, there were some that were gold and silver, or if it was the matter that they were there.

And there were so many of them. You'd think that I'd be more concerned about my coworker being on roller skates, but  I believe that in my natural waking life, I felt like I need more time, more time to do some things, more time to accomplish some things. And all I cared about was getting more time. And I think that may have been a part of why the wristwatches were in the dream.

But nonetheless, she noticed that I was looking at them and told me that I could take, I could take one of them, one of the watches that is, and that no one would mind.  Later on in the month, I had another dream about several eyeglasses inside of a glass case. And this time the glass cases were more like the kind you'd see in a store.

They were standing up vertically, like, you know, like display cases.  But I hadn't linked the two of the dreams together until I went back more recently and looked at my notes. This was months later.  I had connected the dots because I've since learned that there is a relationship between the passage of time and fully understanding my dream or vision.

And when I say my dream or vision, I do mean my actual dreams, but I also mean the vision or the dream of a product or something I'm supposed to be doing and my purpose that over the course of time. It becomes more clear to me.  Time allows for that critical information to occur, like who's going to be assigned to you to help.

And then things like  the strength that you get to own and be better stewards of the gift come through the passage of time when you learn other lessons.  In some ways it's as if time removes the cataracts or the obstacles from our eyes.  This made me think about time and vision  and even the absence of vision. 

The visually impaired have to focus on their journey. They have to be laser focused. They have to respond to the cues that they cannot see to be sure that they arrive at their destination safely.  So I happened to work in a medical district and one morning the spirit led me to focus on the chirping coming from the crosswalk. 

I've journeyed this route many days, but on this particular day, I was especially aware of the chirping.  The chirping aids the visually impaired when crossing the street. And there are several paths illuminated with this sound guiding individuals to many of the office spaces throughout the medical district and also including the Chicago lighthouse. 

And although I can hear the chirps throughout the district, I can certainly and distinctly hear them when I'm closest to the Chicago Lighthouse. Well, this place is a nonprofit social services organization that serve the blind, the visually impaired and disabled veterans with vision care and support services. 

They teach families and individuals how to learn how to become more independent. And  They also help to empower those individuals financially by offering jobs. I've actually worked in environments that utilize those services.  Because of this, I recently learned about their orientation and mobility program. 

This program helps to develop those techniques I was just talking about to afford the safe travel for the visually impaired.  They work with the client to teach them spatial awareness.  And so I wanted to dig a little further to learn what spatial awareness meant. Spatial awareness is the ability to understand your body's position in relationship to your surroundings.

So let's just stop there for a moment.  In the last episode, GPS, intentional positioning, we talked about my dream of being in a limo  and I was enjoying the ride along with these other people who were members of a wedding party and we had no issues or concerns with the trip. We were all happily moving about. 

And it wasn't until I responded to an outside interruption, something that happened outside of the limo that caused me to stop and turn and look around. And that's when I realized that the driver was actually behind us.  We have been facing backwards and we were moving backwards. And so it didn't feel odd because we were facing in the direction in which we were headed. 

Had I been facing forward  while we were moving backward, there would have been a certain sense of awkwardness in the movement of going backwards. It would have been more obvious to me that we were going backwards.  But in that moment, I realized my spatial awareness of the driver in Um, and that's when I realized that we were in fact moving backwards.

So spatial awareness, the fact of it, the fact that there are tools and activities associated with teaching this to the visually impaired made me think about the visually impaired in the spirit.  So if the physical and natural spatial awareness is ability to understand your body's position in relation to your surroundings, the spiritual version of that would be to understand your position in relation to God and his will and or plan for our lives. 

He gives us a promise  or a vision and we struggle because we get the end picture. We, we get the end result, how it's going to turn out, but we don't know the how to's or the when will it's, and it drives us crazy.  It seems like delay, but because we can't compare our time to his time, it just, it just doesn't translate.

We struggle with the mere interpretation of it.  If we're honest, We know that it's always bigger than us. If we can do it alone, then it's our vision and our dream and not his vision for our lives. It's bigger than what we can manage in the state we usually receive it in, right? It's the passage of time and the lessons that we learn along the way that prepare us and strengthen us to be good stewards over this promise, over this vision.

And discovering this can change the whole trajectory of your spiritual life.  The visually impaired have to learn to trust navigating in spaces that they cannot completely see. They have things to do and cannot allow the limitations of non sight delay or discourage them. They have to trust the techniques, or as we say, trust the process, and then they have to move. 

In the world of social awareness and politically correct terminology, the phrase blind leading the blind sounds offensive,  but I'll tell you something.  The visually impaired community has successfully mastered the navigation of unfamiliar territory and unfamiliar spaces where visual cues are absent. 

They do this beautifully empowered and keenly aware  that sight and vision are not synonymous.  Sight occurs in the eyes and vision happens in the mind and in the heart.  In fact, Helen Keller said, the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.  The visually impaired have to be focused on the journey. 

They have to listen and they have to feel. the cues that they can't see.  The click of a cane, the chirping of the crosswalk,  and awareness is necessary. I think that in the seeing community,  time serves as this cue,  right? The visually impaired have learned to trust these cues in order to safely navigate.  I think that time  as a substitution for us in the site community because we're not as laser focused on those cues.

We don't depend on those cues. And any little thing will distract us. Any little thing will  cause us to lose focus. But time, the passage of time  serves as that clarity moment. The thing that brings us back, the thing that gives us clarity. That laser focus because we can look back on it vision in the valley is about vision and revelation and spaces That feel like valley moments Ten years ago.

My life didn't feel like vision in the valley. It just felt like Valley but in time I'm seeing God's perfect plan come into view and That requires trust Trust in faith, just like it does in that orientation and mobility training. Trust in faith. You have to trust  and then you have to move.  Proverbs three and five, trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. 

Second Corinthians five and seven  for we live by faith, not by sight. And finally Psalm 27, 13.  I will remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I like to leave you with one final thought. Do you all watch the show Chosen?  Well, in season one, episode five, Jesus performed the miracle of changing water to wine.

But before he had done so, Thomas had many, many questions.  I'd like to read to you something from that show. The writers took some liberties, some creative liberties, and they had the actor portraying Jesus to say the following.  It's going to be like that sometimes, Thomas. I do not rebuke you. It is good to ask questions, to seek understanding.

I know of a man like you in Capernum, always counting, always measuring.  Join me and I will show you a new way to count and measure. A new way to see time. Keep watching.  I walked away from that and just thought to myself, wow,  Jesus will teach us a new way to see time. 

I can't wait to talk with you soon.