A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Years ago I saw a science program on TV about vision. In one of several experiments that were conducted, volunteers were fitted with special “corrective lenses” that made them see everything upside down. The devices could not be removed by the volunteers, and although they were not allowed to drive, they were encouraged to live the rest of their lives as normally as possible.

Some of them got physically ill, which was pretty easy for me to imagine, and many of them stumbled and fell as they tried to do something as simple as walk down the street. Aside from various bumps and scrapes, headaches and feelings of nausea, none of them were really much worse for the wear. And not a single one of them “got used” to the idea of seeing the world upside down. No real surprises there.

But the test yielded one incredible — at least to me — result: within about 24 hours, every one of the volunteers saw the world as right side up. After that happened the scientists removed their special viewing devices so that the volunteers were all looking just through their own eyes… and the world was upside down again!

Add that to your list of amazing things about God’s creation: our brains can figure out that the image we are seeing is upside down, learn to make the correction, and change how we see everything.

Are we that adept spiritually? Can we see when things are upside down, or do we only look through the eyes of the world? Too many times I fail to use the vision God has given me to see things as they really are, and not as the world would have me see them. But when I do see properly, I fall down far less often.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Reflections, Spiritual Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.