THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

Being an avid reader, and it having been several years since my last eye exam, I decided it was time to get a checkup. Knowing they would probably dilate my eyes, I asked Charlie to go with me so he could drive home.

Naturally I couldn’t pass up a chance to stop at Wally World and pick up a few items. I was doing great inside the store with my dilated eyes. It was when we walked out the door that I knew I was in trouble. At some point during my shopping, I had taken off the special sunglasses the doctor had given me. Unbeknown to me, they had fallen to the bottom of the grocery cart and were lying beneath all my purchases.

No problem…I would just keep my eyes shut and place my hand on Charlie’s shoulder until we got to the car and the groceries were put in the trunk. Wrong…there was a problem. Charlie couldn’t remember where the car was parked. He thought we were headed for the right vehicle. It was the same color and the same make, but the wrong car!

Needless to say, Charlie eventually found the car and I waited in the front seat until he could retrieve the sunglasses for me. Meanwhile, I was laughing wildly as I thought about the ridiculous sight we must have made wandering around the parking lot. Picture me with my hand on Charlie’s shoulder, my eyes tightly shut, and Charlie pushing the grocery cart; just knowing that somewhere in that huge parking lot was a Chrysler 300 that belonged to us.

When we finally left the parking lot I felt like I had just experienced a hint of what Jesus was talking about when he challenged the Pharisees of his day by saying, “Ye blind leaders of the blind…”

Today there are so many people that THINK they’re headed in the right direction, but like the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, not only are they on the wrong path, they are taking others with them.


A person can be absolutely sincere, but still be sincerely wrong. When Jesus Christ said that He was the way, the truth and the life, he was either a lunatic, a liar, or under great self-delusion. In fact, He said that no one could come to the Father except through Him.

If Jesus is the way and the only way to the Father, we have a choice to make. Either we believe what He says or we don’t. If we believe Him, then we have another choice…do we follow Him or someone else? If we don’t follow Him, who are we following?

You might say, “I’m not following anyone”. Really? You’re going somewhere in life. There will be an end and then what?

Recently an old friend came by to help us get our tractor running. Ray is a great mechanic and although we hadn’t seen him in many years, I just felt like he was the right man for the job and so we called him.

After he fixed the tractor, we reminisced about old times. “You know,” he remarked, “next month it will be my thirty year anniversary of when I received Christ.”

I’ll never forget that day. Ray’s grandfather had passed away and we went down to South Georgia for the funeral. When the service was over and just about everyone had left the cemetery; Ray stood by the hole in the ground, looking down at his grandfather’s casket.

After we had all stood there in silence for a few moments, I said to him: “Ray, one day you’re going to die, just like your grandfather. Someday you’ll be buried just like him. When that day comes, where will your soul be, in heaven or hell?”

Right there on that early spring day in March, 1982, Ray accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. No longer was he following the god of this world who was leading him to hell, but he became a follower of Jesus Christ.

Everything changed for Ray that day.
On the way home he decided to light up a marijuana cigarette. The ‘roach’ tasted awful and he threw it out the window. When he got home he opened his refrigerator and took out a beer. The first taste seemed like poison, so he poured it in his kitchen sink and then threw the rest of the beer in the trash.

Ray was no longer blind. His eyes were opened and the spiritual transaction was sealed that very day.
Next month, Charlie and I are going with Ray to visit his grandfather’s grave. He told us he hasn’t been to the cemetery since the day he received his sight; it just seems fitting to celebrate 30 years of eyesight at the place where real life began!