Vision Reveals God’s Hand

Proverbs 20:12
“The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made both of them.”

Did you know that if you stared at an object with absolutely no eye movement you would eventually go blind? Actually, it is impossible to stare at anything without some eye movement and there is a good reason for this.

You may be aware that each eyeball has a blind spot where the optic nerve is attached. Normally we don’t notice it because the other eye fills in the missing portion of the image in our brain. However, there is much more than this going on to make vision possible. Suppose that you are talking with someone, nodding your head in agreement. Despite the movement, your eyes stay focused on his face. You can do that because of an organ in your ear called the vestibular sensory organ. It senses the motion of your nodding head, and sends the information to your eyes, enabling them to stay focused while your head moves.

More amazing is what you don’t see. Your retina is crisscrossed with blood vessels that cast shadows into your field of vision. You just don’t see them because the shadows never move. This explains why, if you were able to stare perfectly at something, you would go blind. Your brain automatically filters out perfectly nonmoving images. If it didn’t, you would constantly see the web of blood vessels on your retina. So when you stare intently at something, the muscles of the eye send microscopic tremors to the eyeball making it vibrate so that you won’t go blind.

The ability to see is the result of several precision-designed systems all working together to give us reliable vision. God, not chance, creates such precise integration.     Author: Paul A. Bartz

I rejoice, Lord, for You have not left my design to chance. Amen.

Ref: Discover, 6/00, p. 108, “Your Steadicam.” Photo: Optic disc (highlighted) shows area on retina where blood vessels converge, resulting in blind spot. (CC BY-SA 3.0)