Do you know someone who is color blind? Color blindness is the inability to perceive differences between colors and is usually classified as a disability. I’m not sure I agree. Allow me to explain.
There are tests to determine if you are color blind. But don’t worry, color blind tests don’t measure your intelligence, they simply determine your ability to distinguish between colors.
In the United States, some seven percent of males and 0.4 percent of females have some form of color blindness. Think about that the next time your color-challenged friend wears different colored socks or even worse, different colored shoes.
I will never forget the day I discovered I was color blind. I was sitting in the cafeteria at college when my friend Cecil sat down across from me. We were laughing, cutting up and enjoying our friendship. We did everything together. We became good friends. We were so close some even got our names mixed up. I’m still not sure how it happened; I was white and he was black.
As I sat there in the cafeteria, it hit me. Despite the fact that we had been friends for a long time, I often referred to Cecil, as my black friend. When we worked out at the gym, I was with my black friend. When we went to ball games, it was with my black friend. When we went to church, it was with my black friend. He wasn’t just my friend, he was my black friend.
For some this may seem like an obvious conclusion based on our skin color. But I will never forget that moment, sitting across from Cecil, when I thought to myself, that’s my friend, Cecil. He wasn’t my black friend, Cecil, but my friend, Cecil. At that moment I discovered I was color blind. Before that moment and despite our deep friendship, I somehow had developed a mental barrier that allowed me to perceive color as something that differentiated us.
Discovering I had developed color blindness was liberating. It didn’t change the fact that he was black and I was white. It didn’t change my friendship with Cecil at all. But the realization did help me discover how to be more Christ-like.
No, I don’t think Jesus struggled with differentiating between colors of the rainbow when he was on Earth. But I do believe He was more concerned about the color of a man’s heart than the color of his skin. As the children’s song’s lyrics say, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Jesus is color blind.
Is it time for you to take a color blind test? Remember, a color blind test doesn’t measure intelligence, just your ability to distinguish color. Color blindness isn’t a disability; it provides the ability to love all people like Christ. When you’re color blind you don’t see color, you see a person. I pray I’m never healed of my color blindness. But then again, I might be prejudiced, based on my ability to be Christ-like!
