He said, "Go, and tell this people:
'Keep on listening, but do not perceive;
Keep on looking, but do not understand.' Isaiah 6:9 (New American Standard Bible)

I’ve had “cheaters” for years. In fact for a long time I had a pair of reading glasses in every room, until I wised up and bought one of those eyeglass holders for around your neck. I call it my eyes on a rope.

Four years ago when I was at the eye doctor, I told him, “I think I’m going blind.”

“No,” he casually answered. “You are just getting old.” As if that would make me feel better. And then he offered me bifocals, which I declined.

Two years ago, he told me the same thing. He put a pair of lenses to my face, opened the door and let me look out into the department store.

“Hmm?” I said. “So things at a distance really aren’t supposed to be blurry?”

Needless to say, I got bifocals.

In another few months it will be time for me to go back to the optometrist again. I am hoping he doesn’t say I need trifocals. That will be the next thing.

But my eyes can be corrected with glasses, and then I can see. What about people who see without perceiving? Or people who hear without listening?

In the Bible, God told Isaiah that that was exactly what was going to be the case. He didn’t want the people to understand what was going to happen. Why would He do that?

It was not yet time. If the Israelites in the Old Testament book of Isaiah understood what God was telling them, what was happening to them, they would have learned nothing. It all would have been handed to them.

They had to go through all the rough spots, learn their lessons, come to appreciate what an awesome God they had. And if you have read the Old Testament, you probably realize that it took them many times to figure things out, to come to trust God unconditionally.

How many times does God have to show you and tell you something before you get it?