“Open Your Eyes” – Seeing Things for the First Time

We see what we choose to see and are blind to what we choose to be blind to. Jesus constantly told people who had eyes that were physically capable of seeing that they weren’t seeing everything they needed to see…that there was more to life and God’s perspective on things than they were understanding.

This covered everything from the eyes being the entrance of either darkness or light into one’s spiritual life (Matt 6:22-23) to Jesus sharing with his disciples kingdom mysteries (Matt 13:11ff) to Jesus teaching his disciples to truly see the lost (John 4:35).

We have to train our eyes to tune them in to see what God wants us to see. Like one of those old autostereogram/optical illusion books they used to print that had hidden 3D images embedded in them that you had to focus just right to see, Jesus wants us to learn to focus our eyes on the spiritual realities of this world. Things that are there but take intentionality and patience to see. You don’t pick up one of those books and see what is there immediately. That is what makes the book what it is…it takes time and patience to learn to focus your eyes in a way to see what is there.

It is like that with our spiritual vision. We have to train our eyes and that takes patience and intentionality. Looking at something that way doesn’t come naturally to us. Otherwise, as Jesus said in Matthew 6 our eyes, even our lives will be full of darkness. This doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through practice and intentionality. When we don’t discipline our eyes, it will affect everything just as when you don’t take care of your physical eyes it will affect the rest of your life.

Let us train our eyes to see the reality of what is happening around us. This will involve seeing people from a kingdom perspective, seeing our own sin as deadly and damaging as it truly is and seeing God’s work as it unfolds around us. What is it you are failing to see and what would it take to get tuned in to seeing it?