Isaiah 35:5

Blind eyes will open. Deaf ears will be unstopped. These are not metaphorical impossibilities to Isaiah's original hearers; they were the very human condition of those living with these afflictions in a world without medical intervention. And yet Isaiah declares them as certainties of the coming age. The sense of sight and hearing are the two primary ways we connect with the world beyond ourselves. To be blind or deaf is to be isolated, cut off from the full participation in community and creation. The vision of restoration begins with the restoration of perception itself. People will see the glory of God. People will hear His word. The barriers that have separated them from full participation in the life of the covenant community will fall away.

For us, these words resonate deeper than physical healing, though they include it. We come to faith blind and deaf to spiritual realities, unable to perceive the kingdom of God at work. Conversion is not first a moral change but a perceptual change: suddenly we see what was always there. We hear the voice we had not recognized. The miraculous thing is not that our eyes are forced open by external pressure, but that they are opened to receive light that was shining all along. This is the transformation that makes all other transformation possible.