Well, I’ve had a headache for about two weeks, off and on, mostly on. It’s definitely been better this week, but it brought some concern to say the least. I went to the doctor and he said he wasn’t really sure what was causing it. He said the only simple thing I could do was to get my eyes checked. Which of course, the only natural reaction to that statement is to assume you’re going blind. Okay, maybe that’s not everyone’s first response but it was mine. Just on the inside. I have always had that secret fear of going blind. So that got me to thinking…
What would my life be like if I was blind? Specifically, what would my spiritual life look like if I went blind? So much of my identity is wrapped up in reading. I study a ton. I love to read the Bible, to read commentaries on the Bible, to read books applying the truth in the Bible, to read novels creatively connecting us with a deeper truth. What if I couldn’t do that? Who would I be? What would happen to my spiritual life? I fear it might grind to a halt. I’ve always been terrible at praying. I know, I know. “Todd, just read A Praying Life. It will change your life.” And I’m sure it will. But so did Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire and Too Busy Not To Pray, among others. And I’m still not very good at it. And I’m not very good at community. Never have been. I’ve read those books too. And I’ve been in the small groups. Just not very good at it. So if I couldn’t read, what would happen to my spiritual life? I think it would suffer.
So I guess I’ll enjoy the reading that I can do now. And keep working on the other things. I will be grateful that the optometrist said my prescription has changed and that might be the cause of the headaches. And I will be grateful that God brought it all to mind. Because even all my learning is just filthy rags compared to His righteousness. My study is nothing compared to His sovereignty. But I still want to learn all I can.
So what do you think? What would drastically affect your spiritual walk?
Todd
Wow. Now that’s honesty.
I don’t think you’re alone with the inner-fear of blindness Todd…I wonder why that is…I’d probably prefer losing pretty much any other sense rather than sight.
Thinking about my answer for this, I’ve come to the conclusion that if I were to lose my independence in any way, my spiritual life would be drastically affected. Now, if that isn’t pure irony, I don’t know what is.
In essence that’s me saying that anything that forces me to rely on God, will affect how I rely on God…hmmmm interesting.
Todd–
Just yesterday I was reading a short piece about Saint Alphonsus Liguori. (1696-1787). He was a missionary, bishop, theologian, spiritual writer and founder of a religious congregation. He lived a long life and endured many trials near the end. The loss of his sight was particularly grievous for him, as he loved spiritual reading. He spent his final days in prayer and getting others to read to him from spiritual books. One day he became very excited over a book they were reading to him about Mary and failing to remember the author he asked them who had written those pious words that were so full of affection. The one sitting with him opened the book to the title page and read to him the author’s name-Alphonsus Liguori-. It is said he covered his face with both hands, and lamented the loss of his memory of writing that book, but rejoiced greatly over having given so beautiful a testimony of love for Mary. Isn’t that something! It was wierd for me to happen across that yesterday because I am currently writing a song about Mary. And then I read your posting today and I knew I was meant to pass that story on to you. Although St. Alphonse was in darkness, God granted him the consolation of being able to see, to really see, the glory he had given Him through his writing before he even got to heaven. He got to directly experience what his writing did for the people who read it. His loss of a sense didn’t diminish his spirituality, it took it to a higher level. (Can you imagine—-if when you got old and were having trouble with your memory, someone putting on some music and you hear this song that makes scripture come alive and you say, “Wow– that’s so beautiful— who wrote that? and they tell you, well you did Todd. — Then you would know what your music does for us.)
Todd, everyone else is blind and that suits me fine. If they saw the real me: lusty, selfish, fearful, frantic, distant, judgemental etcetera
they would feel worse about me than I do. Thankfully the Lord accepts me as I am. knowing He knows me better than I know myself ought to motivate me to change. Oh sinful man that I am! who will deliver me from this body of death?
What I’m learning lately, is I need to disregard my self, sinful or otherwise, and keep my eyes on the prize: the Lord of Glory, the Lord of Love. In your study, you focus on Him. I can’t help but think there is prayer and worship embedded in your study. I feel the same with my study and blogging. Still, I do realize His presence with just a little time being still and quiet in Him in the morning, which I still fail to do. We hear from Him in the noise of the day and in our study, but some of that intimacy is in a quiet moment alone. That is so sweet, but still I go running to my computer to get “up to speed” on whats a happenin’.
Todd your music (especially your message) really blesses me, so thanks! You can’t be pulling that stuff out of a hat. The Lord is getting through to you. So just rest.
Todd, first of all your feelings are completely normal. Whether or not your worst fears are realized, God may be testing your heart to help you see what He sees, to reveal your motives, and to strengthen your faith.
God has worked in my life through some of my greatest losses and sweetest successes to show me that I have placed my sense of security and well-being in other things and other people rather than in the sovereignty of God. It’s funny that these lessons often happen when I’m feeling closer to God than ever, when I don’t recognize the idols that I’m clutching that have crept in to steal the glory of God and His purpose for my life. Even the good treasures of life (ministry, relationships, health) have sometimes distracted me and given me a false sense of security, so I often have to ask myself, “If God took away the greatest treasures of my life, how would if affect my ability to worship Him?” My answer to that question reveals my need for repentance and submission.
I think the most significant thing that would drastically affect my spiritual walk would be losing the sense of God’s presence. Through all the mine fields in my journey, I’ve always felt God with me. Without His presence, I’d feel so alone and disoriented. Then I’d have to walk by faith . . . hmmmm.
Todd, your candor is so very appreciated. I wanted to give you the name of someone who has greatly inspired me through her own journey with blindness: Jennifer Rothschild. She is a very motivational person to say the least! She writes Bible studies and speaks to groups…largely women’s groups, but I can assure you that if you look at her website or read one of her several books, you, too, will be touched. In the meanwhile, we’ll be praying!
Losing my voice – not being able to sing. Only because I feel like I struggle to pray too and I feel like singing is my prayer language. When I have no specific words to form for myself, I sing. When I’m down, I sing. When I’m happy, I sing. It’s so much of who I am and I believe it is a gift from God. Obviously, as such, I surrender it to Him and trust Him with it, but I still wonder what I’d do if I couldn’t sing.
I love to read but God has been teaching me a lot lately about the value of oral histories and traditions and listening better.
And thanks for the reminder – I was meant to go to the optometrist for my 2-yearly check up mid July. Oops.
Hey, Todd. First, I just want to say how much my family loves your music. The lyrics are powerful and fearless. My Jesus is my favorite. When I first heard that song, it completely blew me away.
If a person is truly saved by our loving and gracious Christ, blindness wouldn’t change anything spiritually. Christ is the Living Word and He resides inside our hearts. Not being able to read the Bible doesn’t diminish our spiritual walk at all. Shoot, some of the disciples couldn’t read the scriptures and that didn’t affect their walk with Christ. Yes, he was there in person with them, but why is that different with us today? He’s inside. There’s no way to get any closer to His presence. In no way am I saying we shouldn’t be reading the Bible and other books, but we shouldn’t be relying solely on those things to further our walk with Jesus.
Let me put it this way….I’ve heard it said that the Bible is a love letter from Jesus. Well, if push comes to shove (I go blind), I would rather have the lover (Jesus) much more than just His letters (Bible).
In a nutshell, going blind wouldn’t change my walk at all because I have Christ, the Living Word.
Thanks for all you do, man. Keep writing awesome music.
Hey Todd,
Wow thanks so much for your Heart,Spirit, and Ministry. Your music and deep insights have been a blessing to my life. In the last year or so as I’ve tried to come to terms with a life changing injury I found a very deep and intimate place of worship. In fact both my reading/study as well as the worship side has changed so much I have even became a worship leader. So for me being a musician for most of my life and having discovered what lies “behind the veil ” losing the ability to hear and go to that deep place in worship would be my greatest fear.
Todd-
As I’m about to turn 51, I have started to wonder whether I may someday have a problem with Alzheimer’s. But when I think about it, I realize that perhaps too much of my faith is rooted in what I think I understand. How does a strong faith play out as one literally loses one’s mind? I think I’d be more accepting of other ailments—deafness, blindness, even paralysis—over losing my mind. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t have the capacity to care at that point. 😉
Nonetheless, all things work together for good…
Todd,
I have watched several people in my life struggle with losing their ability to breathe with copd and it is such a struggle to do anything. I have also watched people lose what seemed to be their memories and personalities to alzheimers and also with tbi.
That is scary and I struggle with that as it is in my family, what would it do to my relationships with God and with those I love? That sends chills down my spine to think of losing what I deem to be my own self to disease or injury.
He reminds me, He KNOWS me even better than I know myself, and loves me far more!
Then I look as your site and the Haiti(World Vision) ad. What if something happened to me that hurt me so badly it hardened my heart against Him and those around me. I have seen that happen havent you? That would be the very worst to build up walls so deep, and thick and high it kept me from His light and His love. To not have a compassonate heart to those who need our love so badly, to wall myself off from hurting people around me. I pray my heart is always broken for the hurt around me! That I never stop sending money to world vision, or shoe boxes to Haiti, or school supplies to children in my own community. That I never wall my heart off from God and those He loves. That would be a tradgedy!!
It is your brokeness and your humility that pushes others to give out of our own need as well, thank you for that!!! Through your music, your personality, your writings, your gifts you remain humble, that is the true strength of a godly man. You will never be blind when God gives you a heart to see through! May God Bless you.
Kimberly
Despair. Dwelling on my problems. Dwelling on the problems of others. Death. Poverty. Injustice. Things that generally really suck. All these impact my spiritual walk.
So, I keep reminding myself that all of those things that suck point to Home.
Things are not supposed to suck. I long so much for the way things should be. But here and now I’ve got to accept those things I can’t change and change those that I can knowing at Home it won’t suck. But it is still tough to hold on to Jesus. But it is also a joy to hold on to Him too!
Have you ever considered your headaches may be a spiritual attack?
So I’m going to say something different from what everyone else is saying. As a blind person, I really don’t understand all this fear surrounding blindness. Yes, it would be a loss; yes, it would be difficult to lose a sense that you once had. But polls rank blindness as something like people’s third greatest fears, right there behind AIDS and cancer. So you’d change how you do things. Why would you have to stop reading the word of God, or anything else you like for that matter? I’ve always been an avid reader; a reader of braille, of audiobooks, of online content, and my blindness has not curbed my appetite for knowledge in the least. Blindness would be one more than you’d adapt to. You would grieve the loss of your site. Then, you would either wallow in self-pity or you’d get up and live your life. With Jesus’ love and guidance, you would have the strength to get up and keep living, if you didn’t have it on your own.
Just wanted to say that I really like your music because it points to God not yourself. I was born again in 1973 and your lyrics really reflect my inner world. Your songs purify my relationship with Lord. Keep praying, creating and reading brother for obvious reasons. I picked up Provocations by Soren Kierkegaard this last week from the library. Amazing information! Something I read this morning, “Ah! So much is spoken about human need and misery and how to overcome it. So much is spoken about wasting our lives. But the only wasted life in the life of him who has so lived it, deceived by life’s pleasures or its sorrows, that he never became decisively, eternally, conscious of himself as spirit, as a self. Or, if I may put it another way, he has never become aware-and gained in the deepest sense the impression-that there is a God and that “he,” himself, is answerable to and exists before this God, and that this God can only be met by way of despair. Alas! so many live their lives in denial, decapitated from eternity. So many are not aware of their true destiny, defrauding themselves of this most blessed of all realities.”
Great question Todd. Having seen beauty and going blind, I wonder what I could “see” having already seen. Would I see through the sounds around me. Would I pick out the strain of a voice the way way I pick up on the strain on a forehead of someone talking to me? Would I be more available to people because I needed them to take me where I needed to go? Would I “hear” God in the whisperings all around me, would I now be able to hear him because I wasn’t so busy looking for him?
I guess I’d prefer that God would grow me in more favorable ways than being blind, but I think it would most definitely bring me to new levels of spiritual awareness. Being rescued from the depths, being daily reminded of my need (which I’m far to eager to look over right now), walking in the steps of “the blind man” that we always read about in Scriptures. I don’t want to be blind, but for a time, maybe that’s not such a bad thing? I have a feeling it would drastically change my way of “seeing” life, but maybe not as bad as I think.
Interesting. I have always been just the opposet- waiting to go blind. (Yeah, I know, Weird!!!) Still…..
And though you might have heard this before, but just talk. Ramble on and on if you can…… (At God I mean)
Anyway, what would effect my spiritual walk….. Well that is tricky. Because this would be a good drastic thig. It would be Trusting people. I have a problem trusting others and try to deal with things on my own. And I know that if I could trust GOD enoguh to go out on a limb and trust the people around me, well it would HELP me spiritually.
Drasticly.
It is funny. We sometimes resist Depending on the One true God, but most of the time, in the end, we still go back to Him. But only After we have been squashed flat.
So as i sit and type, go back, type again…it has been brought to my as attention that my spiritual walk could be more than what it is….When I was 17 I went into a girls youth home here in Tucson (1996). I learned that life wasn’t all about me or what I wanted. The youth home is Christian based, so I found a deeper meaning to the words spiritual growth… I found myself praying more.And sometimes i would come out of the counseling room smiling from ear to ear. One of the other girls would say, “Are you hiding something in there”? And the home mother would say, “it’s the Holy Spirit”! I would laugh and enjoy the fullness of the Lords Joy. Over the years my life was lukewarm, and not Full at all. God has humbled me in so many ways, that it has caused me to face my true self. I couldn’t imagine being blind or without sound. Being spiritually blind to me is worse. Theres no way…Lord give us the strength to keep going, your eyes to see the truth, your heart to choose to love. Thank you Todd for being transparent. It makes me look at what we cant live without.
I would miss my wife’s face. My girl’s smiles, the beauty of The ocean waves crashing on the shore. All of what the Lord wanted us to enjoy.. then it makes me think of Paul and his conversion. his was more than physical blindness… it was a spiritual blindness also. he was doing what the high priests had him do, murder. they could not murder, so he did it for them. He was blinded and then suffered for Christ’s sake when he took the gospel to the furthest that his feet could. That is what I want to be like. I couldn’t stand being blind in either aspect. I would miss so much of what the Lord has blessed me with. life is hard enough with my eyes, I would feel lost without them. Although through his grace and mercy, I know that life is bearable. Headaches are something I deal with daily, although I wouldn’t want to loose sight, so I will keep the headaches.
Hey brothers and sisters,
I’m back for a second comment. Three unrelated friends on a social networking website, connected to a charity, were fielding a similar question. All three are struggling with unemployment and under employment. They and their families are in tough places, and their faith is being tested. I am deeply burdoned for these sisters and their husbands. Please pray for the families of Em, Kay and Teri (Semi-pseudonyms) that the Lord would help them to trust Him in whatever move He is preparing for them. Pray that they would be strengthened through the whole test, and come out much better equipped for the Lord’s purpose for them.
I am praying the same for you my brother.
Lord, the next time I am tested, please do not allow me to bail out of the test, to abbreviate the pain, but let your perfect will be done.
Todd,
I still want to give that word that I received back in Ardmore. The word was,”left” and as I prayed about it, the phrase was,”house on left.” I don’t know if i’m too late or if it applies, but I wanted to send it on…(the church concert was a blessing that night)!
Hope your headaches are better…could they be sinus related? You may have an allergy you’re not aware of…
Blessings as always!
Cindy
TODD, i THINK YOU WOULD ENJOY READING THE “JESUS MANIFESTO” BY FRANK VIOLA. dON’T WORRY TOO MUCH-THERE ARE LOTS OF US OUT THERE WHO AREN’T GOOD AT ALOT OF THINGS STILL HE USES YOUR MUSIC TO MINISTER & THAT’S A TRUE BLESSING AND A GIFT. YOU REALLY HAVE SOME POWERFUL SONGS. YOU REMIND ME OF KEITH GREEN IN YOUR ZEAL. GOOD COMPANY. PS IF YOU GO BLIND CAN HE STILL NOT TEACH YOU BY HIS SPIRIT. THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE BIBLE 2000 YEARS AGO AND GOD STILL TAUGHT THEM. I HOPE YOUR HEAD IS BETTER AND I WILL PRAY FOR YOU.
Hey Mr Todd,i love u n ur music.u look jst like jesus.u so handsome.
i listen ur music alot on jango its so inspiring.u really gifted.GOD Bless u always Todd.
Blay writes.
First of all, I’m sorry to hear that you’d been dealing with headaches; that’s no fun. And I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to comment on this; I did read it when you’d posted it, but I didn’t have the time to respond.
On the remote possibility of you ever going blind, you would find a way. You’re a smart and resourceful man, and God would continue to use you; don’t doubt that.
I don’t think hardship is the greatest threat to our relationship with God, but maybe our prosperity and ease is. When things are really hard, I cling to God with everything in me, but when things are going well I can become neglectful of my relationship with God. That seems to be typical for people. Of course we need to take care, when things are really tough, to remember who God is, and we mustn’t allow life’s hard times to damage our relationship with Him. We need to remember that He is always, and I really do mean always, on our side and looking out for what is best.
I’ve been praying for you more this week, and I see that you and Joy are at D-Now this weekend. I’ll be praying for good things to come of this.
Many blessings Todd.
Not to downplay the fear and awfulness of going blind – bc I think it would stink beyond words, (my BFF went blind and died from a brain tumor last year, so pretty awful) but… you say what would happen if you couldn’t see or read anymore – and I thought of my friend Leo who lost his sight when he was 16 and I wanted to tell you you would “see differently” and you would “read differently” but you would not get to cop-out by saying “I can’t see” or “I can’t read”
Leo teaches math in college – algebra, calc I, II, and III. Yes, he is blind in a physical sense, but he “sees” things that we have never seen. So I just wanted to throw that out there, not downplay anything. Hope new specs fix your issue.
I wish that the whole world could be blind.
Yes, that is a rash statement, but how much of the smut that we’re bombarded with now would there be if nobody could see the scantily clad people that we just can’t seem to cover?
I’m right there with you on reading, though. I can’t imagine my life without my Bible… or Jane Eyre. 😀 My prayer life probably isn’t as strong as it should be. I’m not too sure that anyone’s is. Conversing with God is the only thing that is good in excess.
If we were blind, how much more would we trust each other?
How much more would we trust God?