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- Eyes Full of Darkness
My daughter didn’t know she couldn’t see clearly.
She thought the world was just a little fuzzy. Just a little frustrating. The markers her teacher used were always dry and fading. The board was hard to read. She never said much—until one day, she came home with a migraine.
That’s when we scheduled the eye appointment.
Everything changed when we got to the optometrist and she looked through the test lenses.
She gasped, “Ohhhhhh wow…”!
It wasn’t the world that changed. It was her vision.
For the first time, she realized (and so did we) she wasn’t seeing clearly at all.
That moment has stayed with me.
Jesus once said something that cuts deeper than we often realize:
“If the eye in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.”
He wasn’t talking about eyesight. He was talking about perception—the way we understand life. He was warning us that it’s possible to live your whole life thinking you see clearly... when your internal lens is completely…dark.
And when that happens, your life doesn’t just drift, it becomes distorted.
Dark Eyes?
Jesus is talking about your worldview—your inner lens. The way you instinctively interpret truth, success, value, identity, morality, and God.
Dictionary.com defines worldview as:
“A comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint.”
In simpler terms: it’s the story you live by. And the scary part is, you can live by a wrong story without ever realizing it. That is darkness.
And it creeps into your soul.
The System Is Always Shaping You
Here’s the thing: we don’t always end up in darkness because we’re rebellious. It usually starts with repetition and conditioning.
Assumptions. Unquestioned systems. Slowly, they shape how you see.
Culture doesn’t want you to stop and ask questions. It wants you to stay busy. Stay entertained. Stay moving. Because the moment you pause and look around—you might realize something’s off.
This is where money comes in.
Have you ever noticed that the verse about “dark eyes” is wedged right in the middle of Jesus’ teaching about money? That’s not a coincidence.
“No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve both God and money.”
Money shapes your life—where you live, how you spend time, what you prioritize, how much peace you feel, and even how much time you get with your spouse or kids. It’s in every transaction and decision. If your vision around money is dark—manipulated, unchallenged, culturally programmed, unbiblical—then it will twist your entire life toward the wrong image.
And it’s not just money.
Darkness also looks like justifying sin as “culture.”
It looks like calling compromise “self-care.”
It looks like believing lies because they’re easier than truth.
So How Does Darkness Get In?
Here are three of the most common ways:
1. Repeated Images
What you see repeatedly becomes what you accept as normal.
Golden calves, Instagram lifestyles—it’s all forming your imagination.
Image → Imagination → Identity → Action.
2. Undeveloped Thinking
Culture moves fast. It doesn’t reward people who reflect. It rewards people who react.
If you stop thinking deeply and biblically, you start seeing dimly.
3. Blackout Curtains
“Everything’s fine.”
“You’re good enough.”
“You deserve this.”
“That’s just the way it is.”
These are like blackout curtains. Just in case some light tries to shine in and expose the dismal situation you’ve grown accustomed to, these can quickly be drawn to kill the discomfort.
They don’t challenge you—they numb you. And that’s how you end up drifting from the truth while convincing yourself you’re on the right path.
The Consequences of a Darkness
When your internal lens is dim, everything else starts to dim with it, especially your soul.
You live reactively, not intentionally. You call bondage freedom and mock those who are actually free. You mistake a curated image for a healthy identity. You think you’re doing well, but you have less time for real connection with people and God.
Jesus told the church in Revelation 3:
“You say, ‘I am rich and need nothing,’ but you do not realize you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy…eye salve from Me… so that you may see.”
In other words: you think you’re fine—but the world you’re living in is so dark.
How to Get Your Vision Back
Jesus doesn’t just reveal the problem. He offers the cure.
1. Submit Your Sight to Scripture
Don’t just read the Bible for comfort—read it for clarity. Let it challenge your assumptions.
Ask: “Lord, is the light in me actually darkness?”
2. Pay Attention to What’s Shaping You
Movies, music, memes, habits, influencers—none of it is neutral. You don’t need to live paranoid, but you do need to live aware.
3. Repent and Replace
Sometimes the darkness exists because we didn’t want to see.
Repentance means saying, “I stopped asking. I stopped thinking. I started drifting.”
But it’s not just turning from something—it’s turning toward the truth.
4. Buy the Eye Salve
Jesus said, “Buy it from Me.”
That means it’ll cost something—maybe your pride, comfort, popularity.
But what you get in return? Clarity. Integrity. Agency. A soul full of light.
Time to See
Your perception shapes your path. Your vision drives your direction. If the eye in you is darkness—then the whole life you’re building may be off.
But if you let the light in—if you start seeing with God’s lens—everything changes. Your habits. Your goals. Your relationships. Your future. Your peace.
It won’t be easy. But it will be real.
And one day, just like my daughter, you’ll exclaim: “Ohhhhhh wow…”
Not because the world changed.
But because you did.