My Paul has no eyes. Jesus said it would be better for us to be like Paul, having no eyes, than to sin:
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. Matthew 5:29
The following is a true story.
On Thursday a box of 10 Hostess Ho Hos made it into the van. Three children and one adult each had one, leaving six. The rest were being saved for ‘movie night’ on Friday.
One child simply could not stop thinking about those Ho Hos.
While the rest of the family was distracted with dinner guests Thursday evening, that child ate four more Ho Hos. This same child also ate the last two for breakfast the next morning.
So, this child disobeyed mom, stole something that wasn’t his, considered his own desires ahead of his siblings, did not practice self-control, and allowed his eyes and his thoughts to constantly come back to what was tempting him. These are typical, childish sins, of course. But they were sins.
Paul has never been tempted to steal Ho Hos, or anything else for that matter. He is completely free from that kind of sin.
And which child do we feel sorry for?
The Works of God 
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Piper, John Knight, greg lucas, Brian Carlini, Phillip De Leon and others. Phillip De Leon said: RT @JohnPiper: Which child do you pity most, the blind one or the stealing one? John Knight continues to compel. http://dsr.gd/hbCeQw […]
My first inclination is to feel sorry for the young lad who CAN see as he faces the ongoing assault of temptation through seeing. But thinking further I can’t help but feel more sorry for Paul. While he may not have to wrestle with the lusts of the eye, neither can he marvel at the beauty that can only be experienced visually. I may think that it is better to not have to face the struggle of visual temptation, but what is missed along the way? I think it better that I embrace the Gospel of Christ and its freedom from sins curse,THEN beauty is truly beautiful and sins allure is progressively diminished.
The mistake you’re making is thinking that lack of opportunity means a lack of sin. Taking something like this is a sign our hearts want pleasure, possession, or something else more than God. But those sinful motivations are in your blind child, too – they just come out in different ways.
If lack of opportunity made people “better” then monastaries would be full of holy people … but they failed …
Both children are sinners
Both children will have to come to a complete realization of the filth of sin through Christ.
As someone that sees, I pity the child that can see. Making no provision for the flesh is a tailor made mini cross, in comparison to Christ’s, per sinner…it hurts…but it is good. I pity the child because, from this post, it seems the child is learning to feed the flesh and not the other way around…not good.