Surgeon’s Sight

The Helm

There is much to be said about the troubles of our current age. Whether inflamed by social media posts or caught up in the latest news report, there are problems everywhere you look. Zoomers are turning away from meaningful work and relationships because the value they’ve been promised seems far off and distant. Online gurus pilfer pockets promising the payday of one's dreams if they watch this “free” seminar. The divorce rate among Gen X and Millennials continues to climb as the worries of life, the political pressures, and the reality of being married to another sinful human being creeps in. 

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”

“In many times, and in many ways, God spoke to us through his prophets, but in these later days, God has spoken to us through his son.” (Hebrews 1) When we take a moment to look out across the horizon, it can darken our visage like the deepest of ocean depths. Storm clouds threaten all around, but God has not forsaken us. 

The last year or more has seen clouds building on the horizon. Still I pressed on. Years of trying to chart a course only to find myself missing the rudder and tossed and pulled by fighting currents of wind and wave left my family dizzy. Seasickness had caused vomiting of harsh words and confused cries for reprieve. The clouds darkened the sky one night where the only warning of the impending doom was the stars seemingly being snuffed out one at a time. The next morning, half the crew was gone. My wife had left me.

Clash of Tides

“For the lack of vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)

The lack of good leadership in my home was hard to discern to the untrained or unfamiliar eye. Those who knew, saw it coming before I ever did. In the aftermath of the microburst that was my wife moving out, I blamed my wife, I blamed the feminist culture, I blamed the longhouse within the church, but I also blamed myself. There is a difference between casting and accepting blame, and recognizing sin. My wife and I are both sinners saved by grace. Our fleshly impulses and indwelling sin work against the will of the Spirit and without listening to the clear guidance from our Wayfinder, we steer in the wrong direction towards whatever our hearts desire. I was too quick to cast the nets of blame rather than pulling in the sails of my own pride. In the moment, it feels good to cast blame. Like casting a net for fish, doing something to find meaning or sustenance in the midst of confusion. However, when the currents of the world broadside your ship, that's not the time to go fishing. It's time to hunker down and go inward and find why the rudder wasn’t rightly connected to the steering wheel. 

“Perception is Reality.”

The world around us, engulfed by Oceana, is beguiled to believe that our own sight is infallible. The lens through which we see the world or others is an empirical window into “our truth.” There is no room for transcendent reality or ultimate truth in a post-modern/post-christian world. Positive affirmations swirl round and become part of the air we breath or the water we drink. “Yas queen,” and “boss babes” or “main character energy” has become the norm. This feeds into our pride and drives us closer to the whirlpool of despair than we will know unless our eyes are opened. We become blind to the truth that we can’t breathe underwater and expect that the waters rising over our heads as we are swallowed up by the grave is just “me doing me.”

The 24/7 news cycle and social media both condition us not only to look to ourselves for truth, but also to look for what’s wrong in the world rather than what’s wrong in our own hearts. It is much easier to point out the speck of sawdust in someone else’s eye than to deal with the plank of wood in my own eye. “I know it’s there,” we might say, “but there isn’t much I can do about it right now,” or worse, “I’m working on it,” all the while knowing that we are ignoring it, or believing that it is much smaller than it is. 

Just like we needed Jesus to pull our drowned corpse from the locker below and give us open heart surgery to breathe new life into our rotting flesh, we need Jesus to operate on our eyes and give us eyes to see. I find this difficult because everytime I’m given new eyes to see, I walk right into another plank of decking as if I prefer the weight of it pulling my head downward. (Matthew 7:3-5) Of course, then, I have to use my own strength to force my head upward against this weight. 

Does this mean that we are to ignore the saw dust in the eye of another? No. Jesus continues in saying that once the plank is removed, we will be able to see all the better to assist in the speck’s removal. But that’s not where I am right now. I’m still below decks with the surgeon. My eyes still need work. While the tempest has calmed, I can’t chart a course to look for the lifeboat that once was part of the ship I call home. It takes time to learn these new eyes after the trauma of having the diseased and impaled ones plucked out. Becoming the surgeon’s assistant will have to wait for another day. Now is the time of healing.

The Armory

“Give them eyes to see and ears to hear.” (Matthew 13:16)

There is a battle waging over our souls and while it is easy for me to see that the sky is darkening, seeing what is happening and knowing what to do are different things. We are frequently educated in recognition and intellectual pursuits, but rarely are we taught WHAT to do when trials and tribulations come. 

When I was a young Christian, I looked forward to “feelings first” sermons that made me feel like I had the right dosage of the Holy Spirit and that I could do whatever I wanted. I was charismatic in more than one turn of that phrase and I drew others to myself as I sought to make others feel as good as I did. As I grew older, I turned to “knowledge first” sermons that grew what I knew about God and his word. During this time I became insufferable to be around as "knowledge puffs up.” Finding this wasn’t enough, for a brief stint, I turned to “actions driven” sermons meant to stir up the listener to action. Because of past knowledge, I felt this was helpful, but it was still untethered to love, only to duty and responsibility. Feelings and knowledge and action are wonderful, but, like a three-legged stool, if you remove any one, or try to sit on one, the results are disastrous in the long term. I have now started looking for love driven, actionable sermons that balance knowledge with the empowerment of the Spirit propelling me toward action for the sake of love of God and love of neighbor. This kind of sermon is hard to find and for years I ignored it as too simple because it lacked depth in any one area.  I had fallen into the trap C.S. Lewis describes:

My prayer in writing this is that I am joined by others who will cry out to have the scales fall from our eyes, that the quiet judgment of others that is fueled by pride, even though we have trouble driving our own ships to the safe harbor of the LORD, will be given to God before we internalize them and see the very thing we disease grow aboard our own ships, and that as our eyes learn to see like the Great Physician, we will know how to navigate our course for the good of our families and for the glory of God.

Dropping Anchor

The reality is this, based on the accumulation of knowledge and the desire to maintain calm within my family, I silently grew embittered at the circumstances of life and the blessings that God had given me until I decided change needed to happen and cried out for it, only for God to grant great change in my life, but not in the way I wanted it to come. Where I thought I saw clearly, I saw but “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12) and didn’t know how to turn my vision into action for the good of my family and the glory of God. 

I am in a hard season and, finding all sources of hope other than God torn away, can only point others to join me in God’s all knowing, all seeing, and all loving hands. Only the Triune God can bring healing to our lives and give us the ability to see and walk the path securely. As Psalm 18:36 proclaims of God, "You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not give way.”

May your bow be pointed towards the goal and God’s Spirit burn deep in your bones,

- Jeremy Puskas 🔥

Below Deck: A Deep Dive

A note from J.P. Simons - Jeremy provided this sermon as the accompanying Deep Dive to his post, so I gave it a listen before adding it in. Wow. This is really a fantastic message and it cuts to the heart of where we’re going to be sailing this month. I commend this to you. Split it up over a to and from commute. Listen to it while you’re doing chores. Something. It’s a solid Deep Dive. Be blessed, everyone.

Read the transcript for Like a Weaned Child (Psalm 131)