How’s Your Peripheral Vision?

We are talking about the outer area of the vision field. Your vision field comprises the way in which one sees or conceives something. Let’s be clear on something early on. Seeing something and understanding what you see is night compared to day. Want an example? When you see a snake in an exhibit at the zoo, you see a predator in a simulated environment that is easily observed, measured, studied and controlled. When you go to another country and take a stroll in the forest, the circumstances are eerily similar, except that now you are the one being observed, measured, studied and maybe controlled: by the snake.

Raise your hand if you've ever wanted to be invisible? Who hasn't! Think of the endless possibilities for sneaking around, spying, playing tricks or just disappearing when relatives come for a visit. How many of your remember 1951's Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man or Arnold Schwarzenegger battling an invisible alien in 1987's Predator? With all craziness aside, there's a serious race on all over the world for a cloaking device that makes things and people invisible. Warfare, crime, world stability could change forever. There's also a serious moral dimension to the whole idea of a human no one can see.

When “things” are familiar your mental image concerning discernment or perception is at normal levels. What about when things are all convoluted and normal is nowhere to be found? What about the “invisible” forces that work in and around our lives every day? Why does the price of gasoline jump fifty cents overnight without any rhyme or reason? Why is it fifty cents more per gallon just a mile down the road? Why has the most popular condiment in grocery stores, peanut butter, doubled in price in only five years? Why is church attendance up, but church building down?

Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher and economists, wrote a book in 1776 titled “The Wealth of Nations”. He wrote about an “Invisible Hand” affecting the economic and political affairs of countries. His peripheral vision was spot on and he is still highly regarded as a must read in colleges and universities today. He sensed this “Invisible hand” was what affected inflation, innovation, and eventually, an industrial revolution. There is an “Invisible Hand” at work.

Jesus met this “Invisible hand” several times in his ministry. Eve meet him in the Garden of Eden. The twelve Apostles met him at various times in their lives. Paul met and sparred with him several times. You have met him, and will continue to meet him. Be prepared to spar on an individual basis. If you look verrry closely—Invisibility reveals more than it hides.