Depth Perception – Breath of Life Women's Ministries

by Dennis Ensor

I recently went through a few weeks of eye problems. For some reason I developed a severe case of double vision. Each eye worked fine, individually, but when I tried to use them both at the same time, maximum, headache generating, distortion occurred. Therefore I had to constantly wear a patch over one eye.

The best thing about this problem was that I got to hear squeals of delight when I crossed paths with small children who, upon seeing me, exclaimed with joy to their parents, “A pirate!” as they pointed their crooked little fingers at me.

The worst thing about this problem was that I had lost my ability to perceive depth—“the ability to perceive objects and their spatial relationship in three dimensions.” I’m guessing it takes two eyes to triangulate the distance to an object, and to perceive 3D. Without it I felt helpless in carrying out the simplest of functions.

Especially difficult was pulling my vehicle into the garage. I couldn’t tell how close the front corner of my pickup was to the edge of the garage door opening. And then I couldn’t tell how close the front of my pickup was to the back of the garage. More than once, I had to stop, get out, walk to the front and see how close I was before pulling up that extra two feet.

I eventually figured out cheat sheet techniques to solve these problems, but just had to basically wing it in a few other areas, like trying to gauge the distance between my vehicle and construction zone concrete lane barriers along the roadside , or in knowing how close I was to the car parked in front of me when trying to park in a lot.

I remember walking to my barn one fine morning and really missing the ability to just take in the beautiful three dimensional scenery that lay before me. With a weary longing, I quietly paused, and whispered a prayer that my vision would return. The prayer was short, but the longing was deep. I missed seeing.

Over time, my vision did begin to return. At this writing, I can see clearly over 80% of my viewing area, and it seems to be improving a little every day or two. I’m optimistic that it will be restored. Praise God!

While I was experiencing the lack of depth perception with my eyes, it occurred to me that there is another kind of depth perception that is even more important. It is the depth perception of wisdom. It occurred to me that “Wisdom is knowledge with depth perception.” Knowledge without the wisdom is dangerous.

And so I pray two prayers, “Lord, please restore the coordinated vision to my eyes, but even more, Lord, please give me the depth of wisdom.” Amen