One of the phrases in a favorite praise song to the Lord is to “open my eyes”. We sing that to the Lord. We want him to open our eyes to see things through His eyes. We want to see all the beauty and wonderfulness of the world He created for us through unclouded eyes of spiritual understanding. We want to know like He knows and understand our situations in this world. We want to see all the great and wonderful things in us that He sees. In reality, when the Lord opens our eyes, we do see the world through the eyes of God’s compassion, love and concern. We see all the awesomeness of this amazing world He has created. We see God for who He really is, and the flip to that is that we see ourselves for who we really are …and that hurts.

When God opens our eyes, we see ourselves for the sinful, depraved and wicked people that we really are. We see ourselves without all the pious self-righteousness and rationalizations for our actions. It is not a pretty picture. Seeing ourselves through God’s eyes of perfection humbles us quickly. However, we often stop there and become very discouraged and even depressed.

If we look a little bit further, we see a lost and lonely creation of God that was meant for so much more. We see a wonderful person that God not only knew, but knit together and formed tenderly and purposefully within the womb. (Jeremiah 1:5,Psalm 139:13-16) May I remind you that God was the first person who ever saw your face, your tiny hands and toes? And you thought it was your mom and dad who were the first to see you!! God created and saw your wonderfulness from the beginning. And nothing has changed. He designed you. He also knew that you and I would be born in captivity to sin. But that did not stop Him from loving us with an everlasting love, (Jeremiah 31:3) from forgiving us, and from seeing us as beautiful and complete creatures in Him. God sees all our junk and loves us anyway. He sees us through the eyes that not only created us, but also through the eyes that saved us, that redeemed us, that bought us back out of the pit- our captivity to sin. God looks at us through “rose- colored glasses” (blood- colored actually; the Blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness, 1 John 1:7) and sees the magnificent, wonderful, lovely creation of His that we are. Wow! Take that in, would you?!

So, when we have our eyes opened by God, yes, we see the reality of our sinful condition, but we also see the supreme greatness of God in the awesomeness of what He would do for us in creating us… and more so in what He has done for us in saving us. Take heart, beloved child of God, there is nothing about you (including your sin) that He does not know. The good news is that even with that information, He LOVES you. So, the next time you ask the Lord to open your eyes (and you don’t have to be afraid to do that- it will be OK; God is very gentle) be ready for some shocks-- a shock about how crummy you can be… and a shock about how much God loves you and has done for you, and a shock that He wants to use you and me in this world to testify of His power to change and transform a human life and bring others to Him. It will knock your socks off!