Since childhood, I've truly known Jesus Christ and truly desired to honor him. Growing up in a genuinely Christian home, becoming a Christian at age 8, actively participating in church, eagerly studying the Bible, marrying a Christian man, rearing our two daughters to know and follow God, living out God's call to write and speak what he was teaching me - I experienced blessing upon blessing, grace upon grace.

At the same time, other loyalties competed with my loyalty to Christ. Incredibly, I did not recognize these as rival loyalties. I did not see the subtle, yet dramatic, difference between loyalty to things connected with Christ and loyalty to Christ himself. Genuinely loving Christ, I prayed to honor him. Fooled by the counterfeit, I could not see where religious-looking but wrong motives, attitudes and patterns intermingled with godly ones.

Even so, God loved me and acted to answer my prayer. Beginning in 1998, he took me where I didn't want to go to reveal what I desperately needed to see. For 10 years, he has gone to great lengths to show me himself, myself and us.

Here's where words fail.

I knew Christ before - and wanted to know him more - but a veil covered my eyes. I saw him, yet something like gauze or a hazy film clouded the image.

I wear corrective lenses. Without those lenses, I can still see, but everything's blurry. When I look at people, I may recognize them, especially if I know them well, but I can't clearly see their features.

Before getting my first pair of glasses in fifth grade, I thought blurred vision normal. Now I know: It's not. So with my perception of Jesus Christ. I could recognize him. I could tell you the right things about his nature and his ways. But a veil of religious preconceptions kept me from seeing him clearly. Not having experienced life without the veil, I didn't see how much I didn't see.

Long ago, a man named Job had an eye-opening encounter with God. When Job entered a season of great suffering, his "friends" repeatedly, relentlessly insisted that all Job's losses had resulted from something terrible he had done. Job insisted he had remained true to God (and he had). He also began to accuse God of betraying him (God had not). Eventually, God showed up to remove the veil that kept his servant Job from seeing him clearly.

Afterward, Job said to God, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. . . . My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:3,5).

Isaiah the prophet wrote, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . ." (Isa. 6:1). Ezekiel said, "In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God" (Ezek. 1:1).

After Mary Magdalene encountered the risen Christ, she "went to the disciples with the news: 'I have seen the Lord!'" (John 20:18).

Isaiah and Ezekiel, Job and Mary already knew the true God. Yet, at a specific time, God did a profound work in each of their lives. He brought a previously fuzzy picture into focus. They saw him as they had not seen him.

If you see a new glow on my face, it's because I have seen the Lord! He looks GOOD! As never before, I've seen his radiance, his power, his compassion, his indignation, his faithfulness, his fullness, his suffering, his resurrection, his mystery, his love.

The path of life takes us through death because that's where the veil falls away.

Job lost everything. His friends who came to comfort only kicked him while he was down.

Isaiah had never known a king other than Uzziah. How devastating for God's prophet to watch the godly king who ruled Judah 52 years fall to pride in the end and, unrepentant, die of leprosy.

Ezekiel was preparing to enter the priesthood when an ungodly nation conquered his unrepentant one. Along with 10,000 other people of Judah, Ezekiel was carried away into exile in Babylon.

Mary Magdalene watched the man who had changed her life, the Messiah in whom she had put her hope, die a brutal, disgraceful death.

On the cross, "Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" (Mark 15:37-38 NASU). Yes!

When Job and Isaiah, Ezekiel and Mary let go of everything except God himself, they saw.

Seeing, they became who God had created them to be.

As long as we're semi-comfortable with our perceived lot in life, we won't risk seeing and being seen. We may not even realize there is more - to see, to experience, to possess. We'll accept as "enough" the blessings and the grace already received and chalk the rest up to "living in a fallen world." We'll squelch any voice, inward or outward, that suggests otherwise.

Ah, but when things get really, really uncomfortable, we're just a breath away from watching the veil fall. If we'll let it go - and not try to snatch it back up and put it back on, regardless how afraid or intimidated or exposed we may feel - we're on our way to seeing clearly. We're on our way to lookin' good.

You may be thinking any number of things right now. You may feel afraid or puzzled, hesitant, unconvinced or even angry about some of what I've said. But if a voice in the deepest part of you is crying, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see!" that's your spirit agreeing with God's Spirit. Take it one step further: Say aloud what your spirit is saying. With your mouth, ask the Lord Jesus Christ to open your eyes. 

Then, trust him day by day, step by step, as he takes you where you need to go to reveal what you need to see. Remember: The uncomfortable, the difficult, the devastating isn't his plot to do you in. It's his way of removing the veil so you can see and reflect his glory - splendor you cannot imagine or describe. 

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