Yesterday I said that Faith is a little bit like putting on a pair of glasses.  But there’s a catch: just putting on any old glasses won’t do the trick.  We only see clearly if we have the right lenses.

Have you ever heard of distortion goggles?  They bend the light, so that your eyes see objects as though they were way off to the side, instead of in front of you.  If someone puts on distortion goggles and tries to make a basketball shot, they’ll miss badly, believing the hoop is many feet to the left or the right.

Or upside down goggles—also known as invertoscopes?  Their lenses make things appear upside down and apparently can be helpful in preventing motion sickness.  Astronauts sometimes wear them when they travel to space to prevent getting an upset stomach.

But regardless of whether distortion goggles are fun, or invertoscopes can help us feel better, the one thing they have in common is that they don’t help us see reality—rather, they warp our perception of it.

The same can be true of Faith – faith in the wrong thing might be more enjoyable or seem to make us feel better in the moment.  But it won’t give us true understanding or genuine assurance.  And if we keep the wrong glasses on for too long, we’ll be tempted to rearrange reality—to move the basketball hoop to the left or turn it upside down—in order to fit our distortions, when what we should be doing is getting glasses that help us see the truth.

Faith is a virtue; but only if we put on the right glasses.

Have a wonderful day.