According to some research, myopia affects nearly 30 percent of Americans. Better known as nearsightedness, those who endure this frustrating condition cannot see distant objects clearly. Unfortunately, the percentage may be higher of Christians who suffer from spiritual myopia.
Our English word “myopia” originated from the Greek language, and the verb form of the word (muopazo) is found one time in the Greek New Testament. In his second epistle, Peter enumerates eight essential qualities in which a Christian must grow: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love. After emphasizing the need to abound in “these things,” he then warns, “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1:5-9).
Look at those eight essential qualities. Are they yours? Are you abounding? Or are you lacking in one or more of them? As a Christian, are you nearsighted, seeing only the here-and-now, rather than focusing on the essential qualities of living in the here-after?