Have you ever had a challenging season or circumstance you just can’t seem to shake? Somehow it seems to impact you in small or big ways far longer than you ever thought possible?

Yeah, me too. 

I’ve had a few of those and was chatting with the Lord about one recently. He shared an interesting thought with me:

You need to get your Kingdom prescription checked.

Interesting. 

We live in a physical world with bodies that need regular check-ups to make sure everything is working properly. Our eyes are no different. As we age (and I see the irony in me writing this as a 20-something who does not yet need glasses), we have to get our eyes checked, prescription evaluated, and lenses adjusted to help our eyesight stay clear.

If we have physical eyes, then it’s safe to say we have spiritual eyes - Kingdom eyes - that require Kingdom lenses to help as we age. These lenses are given to help believers be capable of seeing Kingdom work, the work God is doing here on Earth that He so graciously invites us to be part of even in our imperfections. If our physical eyes need to be checked, why would our spiritual eyes, our Kingdom eyes, not need the same care? We will not get through life with the same pair of lenses, physically or spiritually. 

We can put on so many different lenses that we use to filter our experience with the world through: joys, hurts, skewed perspectives, relationships, life circumstances, and general humanity. Maybe the lenses we see the world through have become clouded because we walked through a challenging life season out of our control. Or maybe the lenses got dirty from our own sinful choices. Or maybe we took our Kingdom lenses off entirely because we were hurt by believers. Or maybe we’ve complicated our faith and need to return to the simplicity of a more childlike perspective.

Whatever the case may be, as life comes our way, our Kingdom eyes experience changes in prescription, resulting in the need for updated lenses. Sometimes I think we need a new set entirely because we need to be refreshed.

I’ve heard it said that our eyes are a gateway to our souls. To extend that on a deeper level, I think the lens we view the world through is a gateway to the health of our Kingdom perspective.

For me, I’ve become aware of needing a new prescription for how I look on “suffering.” Suffering can take on many forms and unexpected suffering can be a tough pill to swallow. Am I able to look on suffering gladly, knowing it might be done for the sake of the Kingdom? That’s the conversation which sparked this whole concept.

So, when was the last time you got your Kingdom eyes checked? Is there anything you need to do to your current lenses to help you see the Kingdom more clearly? Do you need to take off a certain pair of lenses, like bitterness, you put on to replace it with your Kingdom lenses? Have you misplaced your lenses?

Either way, consider this your invitation to get your Kingdom prescription checked. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it looks like to get a Kingdom prescription update, but I know Who I need to spend time with to figure it out. He’s always there, waiting to remind us we are loved, and He has a perspective that far surpasses our understanding. All we need to do is ask for a check-up.