I was talking to my kids the other day, and mentioned the term “spiritual eyes” to them in passing. I had been praying that God would grow me up spiritually to the point that I could see the “hidden” things of God. I know that my Heavenly Daddy has so much for me, and He is waiting for me to be mature enough to recognize those things.

When I mentioned that (spiritual eyes) to my kids, one of them told me that her teacher told them that “the reason that God closes our spiritual eyes, is so that we wont go crazy from what we see through them.” I was taken back at first at how childish her teacher’s perception was concerning this, and I prayed about it. I was reminded several months back as I was praying, when a question came to my mind about this very thing.

I don’t know where the question came from, or where in me I heard it, but I remember it clearly. I felt as if God was asking me “If I wanted to show you the spiritual as plain as the natural (where angels and demons were as clear as trees and people to my eyes), would you want to see it?” I remember my reply was first an attempt to be “humble and lowly”, and I thought “No I don’t think I could handle it… It would be to scary to see a huge demon standing before me”.

After a couple of seconds I responded out loud “But God, I would be able to see how much bigger you were than those tiny little demons, so yes… yes I would” I could see that satan was trying to get me to be afraid of the hidden unknown things of God.

As a couple weeks went on, I was praying in 1 Corinthians 13 where it was talking about “when I was a child I spoke, thought and reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. I heard the same voice tell me that “the hidden things were not hidden, but because of my childish spiritual condition I was unable to see them.” I asked the Lord what He meant, and he used the analogy of a newborn baby.

When a baby is born into the world, they can only see what is right in front of their face (their hands). The room isn’t hidden from them, but they don’t see it. As their eyes mature, they start to see further away but are limited by their location. They lay in their crib, and can see the carrousel and the ceiling, but the door or floor isn’t visible.

As they learn to sit up, crawl, stand, walk, jump, run, ride a bike, drive a car and so on, their location changes as does their scope of vision. The hidden things are revealed as they grow up, and it can be a very frustrating for a parent to have kids think they are know-it-alls with every revelation they get.

The scripture tells us that the revelations will become useless and are only a part of the big picture. When my kids learned to ride a bike, the having “to relearn to walk” is useless. Learning to ride a bike, only reveals a small part of this huge world we live in. That principal is so very true in all areas of our life when it comes to growth.

I get very tired of hearing scientists claim to teach “facts” about the universe when we have not even left the crib scientifically. It is frustrating to hear philosophers ask me if a tree makes a sound when it falls if I am not there to see or hear it, when they breath air that cannot be seen or touched. It can be very frustrating to the Father in Heaven as He tells us to have faith, and we cannot grasp it because we don’t see it.

That teacher meant well, but she of all people should know that a child could never use the excuse for not wanting to go to school, being because they don’t want to be driven crazy by what they don’t currently understand. Could you imagine a student saying they don’t trust the teacher enough to believe that 6+6=12, because they don’t have enough fingers to verify it to be true? We have enough sense to know that a child could never understand history or science, if they cant read or write.

Once a student learns to read or write, to relearn it in order to study science or history is useless. It is silly when a child thinks they can teach a class, when all they can do is read or write, because that is only a small part of the big picture.

The Spiritual world is very real, and the Lord sees it, hears it, feels it, understands it, and is the final authority about it. It is foolishness to not have faith in Him, and childish to think we know more than Him. Just like it is my desire for my kids to grow to be adults and my responsibility to help them to get there, it is the Father’s desire and responsibility as well to see we have everything necessary to grow spiritually.

Learning to see with our spiritual eyes is the baby steps that we need to learn for eternity. The revelations in scripture that we get, are for our life on this earth, and it makes no sense to refuse to learn them until we “get to heaven.” To be afraid to grow because maturity scares us, is complete childishness and unnecessary fear.

I have heard it said that a person can become “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good”, and that is a lie from hell. When a spiritual baby pretends to be an adult they become no earthly good, but a person who takes the time to seek the face of God and walk in His love, will become earthly good by the nature of maturity.

When a teenager claims to be an adult because they can have sex and buy booze, they become a burden to society. When a baby Christian refuses to grow up, they become a burden to mature Christians who have to go behind them and clean up after them. The conclusions drawn about adulthood by a child are never correct, because they draw conclusions from the attitude of “what can I get out of it”

The true mature adult, will seek to walk considering the interests of others first. They will give and not take. They protect and not hurt. A teenage boy, having sex to be a man, will high tail it and selfishly run away in self preservation when he gets a girl pregnate.

God wants us to desire to see through the spiritual eyes He gave us, but there are some mature guidelines. Believe His word even when you don’t understand (he is the teacher), ask Him what He wants you to learn (a student doesn’t demand to the teacher what will be taught in class), understand that a revelation is a small thing in the grand scheme of His vision (don’t get puffed up and stuck on your pet revelations), and by all means walk in love (we all grow at different speeds in different areas, we all have different talents and callings, we all live with different needs and live in different locations, but we all serve the same loving Lord Jesus and have the same Father in Heaven).

Father, thank you for opening the eyes of my understanding, I ask that you lift me where you want me, teach me and use me, help me to consider others better than myself, and I am so very grateful for using me in your Kingdom despite myself. I want to grow up to see and know you Father just as much as you know me.