If you see me on the street, as the song goes, “walk on by.” I look like the double in the white suit for “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” I recently had eyelid surgery. Y’all may recall my cataract surgery last December. I suppose that wasn’t enough, so here we go again. Actually, while the cataract surgery was successful and allowed me to have the gift of sight that I wasn’t born with, over the last year, I began to notice drastic changes in my sight. Come to find out, it was impaired through my right eye. After a series of tests, referral to my original surgeon and a referral to a specialist, it was determined that I was a prime candidate for a procedure that would improve my condition and allow me to go the distance. Through a spiritual lens (cause that’s how I roll and what comes to me), I was able to transition from having sight to having vision – which is what the Lord is beckoning us to do and to operate as we embark upon a year we’ve never seen.

I wondered what the “internets” would document as the difference between sight and vision. Here’s what I ascertained, “If eyesight refers to how well the eyes capture images, vision refers to how the brain processes the information coming from the eyes. For example, when looking at an object, your brain may focus on that object while filtering out other things that are within your view.” If we are to actualize the desires of our heart, it behooves us to establish a posture of “filtering out the people, places and things” that do not assist us in obtaining what is deeply rooted and connected to our purpose. I don’t want to sound or present as trivial, with the passe’ “I’m deleting people” but instead how might we identify even within ourselves or our psyche the distractions, the doubts and the destructions that we have constructed and contained that limit us, trick us, defeat us and disturb us such to the extent that we remain in a season of sight as opposed to a lifestyle of vision? It’s a vital and necessary question to ponder in order to move to our next.

Lissen, this 23 has been a year. I recently laughed at the meme going around as well as videos where folx are asking “not to be signed up for one of God’s hardest soldiers” because they desire 24 to be different. I just believe that as we proclaim and operate as a believer, we will experience hardness, but also, as a believer, we have the ability to experience and walk in vision as opposed to those who have yet to build a relationship with the Father who assures us that “it” and “we” will be okay. And to be fair, vision takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it will occur as God deems. Habakkuk 2:3 agrees, “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”

What has stopped you from dreaming? What has presented as a barrier to what you desire? What is stationed in your peripheral assuming “line of vision” posture? What have you allowed to lie dormant? What is staging your sight as opposed to dominating your vision? I did not desire surgery. In fact, I asked was it necessary? My surgeon said, “No.” If you want to continue to see in the capacity that you are operating, you can go longer under the present circumstances….but if you want vision in the long run, to not experience blurriness, to drive at night and not have only one open as the day comes to an end, this is your best option. So, in the words of Black Sheep, “You can get with this, or you can get with that.” It’s up to you. Do you want sight or do you want vision? It might cause you to be bruised, but I’ll choose the latter.