When you face a crisis it’s easy to lose perspective. It happened to two of Christ’s disciples on the Emmaus Road. Discouraged about His death, they were ‘going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their…questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognise who he was’ (vv. 14-16 MSG).
When you take your eyes off Jesus, you start to feel helpless about your situation. Dr Michael Youssef says: ‘Facing a major crisis, I tend to be the kind of person whose vision becomes blurred. My perceptions are shot. My contemplations are one-sided. I often shut out the very people who can deliver me, just like those two disciples…Their vision was blurred about the person who was walking with them and talking to them. The one whose death they were mourning was alive…but they didn’t realise it because their focus was on the wrong thing.’ But everything changed the minute they recognised Jesus. ‘Within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There…the two…told…how Jesus had appeared to them as they were walking along…and how they had recognised him as he was breaking the bread’ (vv. 33-35 NLT).
Note the words ‘within the hour’. In an instant they went from fear to courage, pain to joy, and despair to hope. Paul wrote, ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened’ (Ephesians 1:18 NIV 2011 Edition). When you stop focusing on the problem and fix your eyes on Jesus, you get 20/20 vision and you’re filled with hope.
1 Chron 10-12, Acts 16:1-21
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