1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Have you thought about the power inherent in humility? It enables us to see and respond to truth and wisdom.  Humility prevents the bulwark of pride from being built into a wall of unteachableness that prevents us from recognizing truth when we see it.

A frightening thing about the blindness of pride is that we can be completely unaware at how faulty our judgment is when it comes to recognizing wisdom and truth.  There’s an example in Scripture of a type of blindness that is useful.

In 2 Kings 6:8-23 we have the story of the king of Aram becoming enraged because whenever he planned an attack on Israel, the prophet Elisha warned the king of Israel exactly where the attack would take place.  Time and again the planned attacks failed.  So the king Aram sent his army to Dothan to capture Elisha.

Elisha prayed that the Lord would strike them with blindness and He did.  But when we read the account it’s apparent that this blindness is really unique.  The army can all still see but they are unable to recognize the reality of what they are seeing.

Elisha goes out and tells them that “this is not the road and this is not the city.  Follow me and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.”  He then leads them to Samaria and when they enter city the Lord opens their eyes.  Fortunately for them, Elisha tells the king of Israel to have mercy on them.

I’ve found this story to be a very helpful one because it describes a blindness that simply prevents them from recognizing reality.  Although this one was supernaturally induced, a similar type of blindness is apparent repeatedly in Scripture.  Just think of the inability of the religious leaders to recognize the reality of Jesus!

An attribute of those who are perishing is that wisdom is deemed to be foolishness.  This is blindness that fails to recognize reality.  The message of the cross is the power of God.  Hopefully our lives will always be a wonderful demonstration of the wonder of His salvation – and help the ‘blind’ to see.