Eyes

Trying to pick out glasses through dilated eyes is no easy feat. On a related note, it stinks getting old. As I look at the carousel of glasses, post eye exam, they all look like varying shades of blurriness. After a few minutes of diligent and focused hunting, I decided to call it a day and schedule a follow up time to come back and browse, when I could see a little more clearly...lest I look like the church lady from Saturday Night Live, walking around sporting some wild frames.

Sight, like all of our senses, is something we often take for granted on a day to day basis. Some of us never truly appreciate our sight until we start to lose it. Do you wake up every morning with a heart of gratitude and a tongue of thankfulness to God for giving you another day of sight...yeah me either.

In fairness, we take many things for granted in our lives; our memory, our friendships, even our marriages. As a caveat, and it goes without saying, but I'm no eye doctor. However, I don't think one has to be, to appreciate the miracle that sight truly is. Our eyes are the lens, both literally and figuratively, of how we see and perceive the word around us.

Our eyes help enhance the experiences of life, both good and bad. Have you ever seen a rainbow after a storm and stood starring at the beauty, almost paralyzed, by how amazing the colors are? Have you ever held the hand of a family member, at their bedside, and watched them take their last breath? Our eyes can connect us to others and our eyes can separate us from others...if we let them. What may be perceived as an eye problem, could more accurately be diagnosed as a heart problem.

How often do we use the gift of sight in a manner inconsistent with God's commandments? I'm sure married men reading this would state emphatically they've never...ever...looked at another women lustfully. Yeah, right. I'm sure no-one reading this has ever watched a movie with harmful images or bypassed the dialogue of film altogether, and sought out harmful images directly. Yeah, right.

In Scripture, we learn without exception, we are all sinners. Knowing we have a collective bond of brokenness, we still convince ourselves what we see others doing, is somehow more egregious and more severe than our shortcomings and struggles. Our pride and jealously see others doing well or receiving recognition and attention, and we absolutley can't stand the sight of it.

We are so busy competing with the life we see others portraying on Facebook, that we aren't living the life of our own. Here's something that's taken me a long time to realize...there is only One who sees me for who I am. He sees all of my good qualities, He also sees the skeletons no closet on Earth could possibly hold. God doesn't see the external person, He sees the heart.

We should use our eyes to see others as Christ sees them. If we saw others as Christ saw them, we would give others the grace and forgiveness that God gives us. After all, how can we withhold from others, what we so badly need ourselves?

You've probably heard the story from the bible where Jesus healed a blind man. It was one of the many miracles He performed. We read that when his sight was restored, the man "saw everything clearly." My prayer for you and my prayer for myself is that Jesus will restore our sight, so that we can see everything clearly, that we can see like He sees, that He will open our eyes.

Much Love, Adam

1 Samuel 16:7: But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." 
Mark 8:25: Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Psalm 32:8: I will instruct you and teach in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
Proverbs 16:2: All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the Lord weighs the motives.
Matthew 6:22: The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 
Matthew 7:3: "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"
1 John 2:16: For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 
1Corinthians 2:9: But as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him." 

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