There are things God has prepared for those who love Him that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and the heart has not yet received. As it is written in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (NKJV). Let us take as granted that God has prepared these things. How, then, do we get them to enter our hearts? The eyes and the ears are the gateway into your heart. The journey into your heart goes through your eye, your ear, your mind, and your mouth.
1. How Can I Recognize Spiritual Blindness in My Life?
As written in Proverbs 3:5–6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (NKJV). My first answer is this: that is the problem with blindness. You do not see what you do not see.
So how can we recognize spiritual blindness? We start with the humility that admits that, in the spirit, we are blind. We are led by the Spirit, like a blind person who says, “I cannot navigate this. Would you take my hand and lead me?” The Lord, in a way, is saying, “Put your hand in Mine. Lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Me in all your ways, and I will direct your path.”
Donald Rumsfeld once spoke of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Our spiritual life is the same: there are unknown unknowns. My major answer is to come to the Lord and say, “Lord, maybe I see more than I used to see. Maybe I see more than the average person. Yet I am blind. I still have blind spots. Open my eyes. Show me my unknown unknowns. Show me what I cannot see about me.”
There are other signs as well. How do you know you are blind in an area? You keep bumping into things. If you keep bumping into the same thing, there is probably something you need to see.
The bottom line is that all of us have spiritual blindness. There is a spectrum of blindness, and it has far less to do with our eyesight than with the pride or humility of our hearts. As James 4:6 says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (NKJV). When we are proud, God will allow us to be blinded in a way. Jesus said in Matthew 11:25, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes” (NKJV). Your sight in the spirit has a great deal to do with the posture of your heart in humility.
2. Can Wrong Thinking Keep Me From Hearing God?
As written in Isaiah 55:8, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord” (NKJV). Yes, it can. God is God. He is sovereign; we do not tell Him what to do. When somebody holds a fixed set of beliefs — “No, it is this way, not that way” — in my experience God will generally not gatecrash them and force His opinion upon them.
There have been areas of my life where for years I did things my way, held a certain belief, and went in a certain direction. Only when I was willing to do what I described in the previous answer — to say, “Lord, am I missing something here? Have I got this wrong?” — did the Lord answer, “Yes, you have. Absolutely. I have been trying to speak to you about that for ages.” Our thinking can put blinkers and limits upon the Lord.
3. How Does Scripture Reshape the Way We See God?
As written in Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night” (NKJV). God has said something so that we may see something. Scripture can change our presuppositions. If we come to God with a whole load of Scripture in our hearts, we are going to see far better.
Yet we can also fill our lives with Scripture and come to Him with legalism. You will see in the Bible what is actually going on in your heart. A proud, religious heart can find pieces of the Bible to justify itself. That is what the Pharisees did.
So we need to read Scripture, meditate on Scripture, and proclaim Scripture — but what we really need is to come to the place where we can see Scripture. We are saying, “If this is true — which it is — let me picture it.” The church has had such a poor view of the words imagination and meditation. God gave you an imagination, and you are limited by your imaginations. God wants us to take His Word and say, “Wow — God said this. God said that.”
You see this in the life of David. David meditated on the Word of God, and when he came into the Goliath situation, he did not see what other people saw. He saw an opportunity for victory: “My God is so big — this man is going down.” We see through Scripture, but we must allow that Scripture to live in our hearts, not simply as doctrine in our heads.
4. What Did Jesus Mean When He Said, “But I Say”?
As written in Matthew 6:22, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light” (NKJV). Jesus says, “You have heard it said this way, but I say to you this.” In a sense, I am taking that pattern and saying, “You have seen it this way, but God sees it this way.” Jesus is contrasting the ways, the thinking, and the perceptions of the world with the perceptions of God.
He is challenging the people to let go of one way in order to go another. You cannot look at two things at the same time unless you are cross-eyed. When your eye is single — as the older translations put it — your whole body is full of light. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (NKJV). It is vital that we learn to do the same.
5. How Can We Move From Revelation to Understanding?
As written in 2 Peter 1:19, “We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (NKJV). Here is the process: see with the eye, hear with the ear, understand with the heart. We must engage with what God is saying — look at what He is showing us and hear what He is speaking. As we do, revelation will be birthed in our hearts. If we will do our part, the Holy Spirit will do His.
Peter had seen the transfiguration and heard God speak audibly, yet he points to something even surer — the written Word, for “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
If you have ever sat in the dark and watched a sunrise, you know it does not happen all at once. For a while it is barely perceptible — a slight change of colour in the sky, a sense of something on the horizon — until finally it is the midday sun. Revelation is born in our hearts in a similar way.
In Mark 4:24, the Classic Amplified renders Jesus’ words this way: the measure of thought and study you give to the truth you hear will be the measure of virtue and knowledge that comes back to you. When God says something to me, I can let the birds steal the word. I can let troubles, the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things choke it. Alternatively, I can pay attention to it, keep reading it, meditate on it, and meet God in His Word. Over time, that will change, shape, and transform the dispositions of my heart.
Years ago, when the Lord called me to live by faith, my problem was that I had no faith for provision. I had faith for healing, and for the first two or three years of my ministry I saw God do amazing miracles — yet I lived at the edge of bankruptcy. I would put two dollars’ worth of fuel in my car and run out again and again.
The Lord told me to take Philippians 4:19 — “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (NKJV) — and say it. I remember walking around a hilltop in India saying, “My God supplies all my needs,” while everything within me was saying, “No, He does not.” If I am honest, I believed I would starve more than I believed God would supply my needs. The Lord came to me so graciously and said, “Graham, you are being honest — you do not believe this. I am not asking you to believe it. I am asking you to say it, to think it, and to meet Me in it. Keep engaging with that word.”
I cannot tell you exactly when, but over the next year or two that word moved from my mind and my mouth into my heart, and it has never left. I now find it nearly impossible to look at a need without thinking, “My God will meet that.” I believe that my God will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Let me challenge you to start your own journey there: engage with what God has said until it moves from your eyes and ears into your heart.
Scriptures for Study
1 Corinthians 2:9-10, Isaiah 64:4, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, Matthew 11:25, Isaiah 55:8-9, Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:1-3, Psalm 119:18, 1 Samuel 17:45-47, Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 6:22-23, 1 Corinthians 13:11, Romans 12:2, 2 Peter 1:16-21, Mark 4:14-20, Mark 4:24, Philippians 4:19, Romans 10:17, Ephesians 1:17-18, Revelation 3:17-18, John 9:39-41, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Hebrews 4:12
10 Questions for Reflection
- Where might you have “unknown unknowns” in your walk with God?
- What things do you keep bumping into, and what might God want you to see in them?
- How does the posture of your heart — pride or humility — affect what you can see in the spirit?
- Are there long-held beliefs that may be limiting what God can say to you?
- When did you last ask the Lord, “Have I got this wrong?”
- How do you read Scripture: as doctrine in your head, or as truth you allow your heart to see?
- How might a sanctified imagination help you meditate on God’s Word?
- What “childish things” in your perception does God want you to put away?
- Which word from God are you allowing to be stolen or choked, and which are you giving your attention to?
- What promise could you begin to speak and meditate on until it moves from your mouth into your heart?
