Editor's note: Enjoy this devotion from Tim Tebow's Look Again.
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In 2015 I was playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. Scratch that — I was trying to play for the Eagles (I say trying because I ended up getting cut later in the year, before the season officially began). In between training, lifting, and practices, the team often went through different kinds of tests. It was a way for the coaches and trainers to try to make us football players even just 1 percent better. I appreciated their dedication to our performance. During one eye exam, I noticed the doctor was unusually expressive, despite the protocol to keep findings under wraps until the assessment was complete. Every few seconds, he let out a thoughtful “hmm,” each one growing longer and closer together. Finally, he looked up from his notes and asked, “So Timmy, how long have you known you’re colorblind?”
My forehead wrinkled. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You didn’t know?”
“That I was colorblind?” I’ve been told I was a lot of things over the years, but being colorblind was definitely not one of them.
“Oh yes,” the doctor stated with a firm nod. “You’re definitely colorblind.”
The reality of this new diagnosis didn’t really hit in the moment, but looking back it makes a pretty good excuse for all the interceptions I threw.
Colorblind? I had spent almost three decades on this earth without an inkling that I struggled to tell some colors apart, especially red and green, thanks to the way my eyes’ cone cells process color. Most people don’t even know they are colorblind until a doctor figures it out for them. Like me, they adapt without realizing it. What they see is what they see — until they get a chance to look again and realize what they’ve been missing.
A New Lens
I watched a video on YouTube of a man who was colorblind whose family recorded a video of him opening their birthday gift to him. He was in his mid-sixties and had a no-nonsense vibe, looking like the kind of guy who despised a birthday fuss and especially being filmed. True to form, he took his time opening the present. After he unwrapped his new pair of “sunglasses,” someone behind the camera encouraged him to put them on. The man rolled his eyes and slipped on the glasses, unaware that they were meant to help illuminate certain colors he struggled to see. Suddenly, he froze. Then, gripping the sides of his new shades, he looked up. Then down. And real slow, side to side.
“How does it look?” the woman recording the video asked.
Barely above a whisper, the man replied, “Oh, that’s weird.”
“Do you see colors now?”
Lost in his new visual world, the man began to murmur to himself, lips barely moving. “The trees are green.” His trembling hands clapped together as he continued to take in the world around him.
“Oh my. Oh wow. I’ve never seen this before,” he said, his voice cracking.
Behind the camera, the woman began to sob, saying, “Now you can see with our eyes!”
Overwhelmed and speechless, the man fumbled with his pockets, like a four-year-old forced to wear a suit for the first time. The man’s gaze darted in every direction, pausing every now and then to rest on vibrant green grass that once looked grayish and a rich blue sky he’d seen only in pale hues. Words failed him. Choked by sobs, he stood awestruck in the middle of a world he’d only just discovered. The man began to repeatedly slide the glasses down his nose and back up, over and over, switching from his view of the familiar muted world he knew to the vivid reality the new lenses introduced.
“Oh my goodness,” he blurted. “Nothing looks like mud... The trees don’t even look real. Seriously, they look 3D. I’ve never seen colors like that!” Gasping at every object revived in true colors for the first time, the man’s fists clenched. He began pumping his arms, reminding me of another picture of a little kid, this time of one who just unwrapped the birthday present they’d always wanted but never believed they’d actually get. I can’t help but tear up every time I watch that five-minute video.1
Over time, I processed what it meant to be colorblind. I wondered how often I have missed seeing something for what it really looked like. But the more I thought about it, the more another revelation came to light. This one deeper than seeing just color. How many times, I wondered, have I not seen people the way I should?
It’s one thing to confuse my red and greens. It’s another to make an unfair or unnecessary judgment about someone. There have been many times I’ve missed the mark in seeing people rightly because I’d seen them only through the lens of what they could do for me — by their talents, abilities, or how they might fit on a team — rather than valuing them simply for who they are.
- Seeing ourselves as God sees us matters.
But seeing others the same way God sees them matters too. Experiencing life with Jesus is like putting on glasses that transform how we see the world. Just as colorblind goggles may allow people to see the vivid beauty of colors they never knew existed, knowing Jesus and grounding ourselves in the truth that we are created as God’s image should change how we see people.
God’s Heartbeat
Jesus has a profound ability to see beyond appearances and into the soul.
Unlike us, He doesn’t need to look again; He sees clearly the first time. It’s no coincidence our Savior arrived on earth quietly, defying expectations as the opposite of the warrior king that some of the Jewish people anticipated. Over and over, He shattered people’s assumptions and biases.
Jesus wasn’t born in a palace with gold floors but in a room with animals and their feed and excrement. Jesus didn’t enter the world with fanfare but through scandal and the womb of an unknown and seemingly unremarkable teenage girl. Ancient scholars weren’t present at His birth; common shepherds accepted the invitation.
When Jesus began His public ministry, He didn’t announce his identity to the religious experts of the day or the Jerusalem morning show but to a woman from a different culture who had a checkered marital history. Jesus didn’t surround Himself with an elite leadership team of sought-after speakers who had written multiple New York Times bestsellers but with a scrappy crew of men and women whose names had never made an A-list. Jesus’ habit of regularly drawing near to lepers, dining with people of questionable company, standing up for the poor, and treating social pariahs with dignity was shocking to the customs of that time.
You could say that Jesus lived in the margins, what’s defined as being “among the least typical or least important parts of” society or a group.2
You know who occupies space in the margins? The MVP.
Jesus sees the marginalized; He sees their value. Isaiah 61 records a prophecy of the coming Messiah. Read the first verses:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion. — vv. 1–3
Have you ever noticed who Jesus brought the good news to? While the obvious answer might be everyone — and that’s true — this scripture in Isaiah specifically highlights vulnerable groups.
Did you catch who’s being described?
- “the poor”
- “the brokenhearted”
- “the captives”
- “the prisoners”
- “all who mourn”
- “those who grieve”
When I look at these descriptors, I don’t think of the strong, powerful, and successful — at least not by society’s standards. I think of people who live in the margins. The ones who struggle to fit in, to be seen, to be known. While a few cultures have esteemed people with disabilities — like the Dahomeans of West Africa, who believed that some babies born with special needs were seen as a sign of good luck or the Chagga of East Africa, who thought that children with disabilities appeased evil spirits, which would then protect the community from bad luck — most are looked down on.3
While Darwinism celebrates the strong as the ones who not only survive but also succeed, the Bible, through Jesus as God’s ultimate image, shows up for the one who’s alone, on the run, crushed, in darkness, chained, and in tears. If we want to know the heart of the Father, we look at the life of Jesus. What did Jesus do? He served, protected, and taught. He gave and helped. His attention was not just for the fancy or the fortunate.
Yes, Jesus actively sought the MVP.
And He still does.
1. “Man Sees Color for the First Time,” posted September 16, 2017, by Poke My Heart, YouTube, 1 min., 18 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1ZcK-Eima-w.
2. Collins Dictionary, “margin,” accessed May 2, 2025, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/margin#.
3. Irmo Marini, “The History of Treatment Toward People with Disabilities,” in Psychosocial Aspects of Disability, 2nd ed., ed. Irmo Marini et al. (Springer, 2017), https://connect.springerpub.com/content/book/978-0-8261-8063-6/part/part01/chapter/ch01.
Excerpted with permission from Look Again by Tim Tebow, copyright Timothy R. Tebow.
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Your Turn
As we grow in our faith, the Holy Spirit will nudge us to look at people differently… as deeply loved by God and created in His image. He’ll guide us to be servants and protectors of others. He’ll inspire us to help others and be selfless. That’s how He lived! ~ Devotionals Daily