Open the eyes of my heart

I began writing a poem this morning. My husband knows when I am thinking of rhyming words – I get a glassy look in my eye! It is not the finished article, but just the stirring of something.

You say, “Son of David
Have mercy on me.”
You cry, “I am blind
And I want to see.
I’m trapped in a world
Of darkest night
Lead me, Sweet Jesus
Into the light."

But what will you focus
Your gaze upon
In the light of day
With the darkness gone?
Will you see the things
That break My heart
That grieve my soul
And tear me apart?

Will you see the tears
The needy cry
Or gaze on clouds
That scud the sky?
Will you see the scars
That people bear
For those who hurt
Will you be there?

I am mindful that I don’t always see things. A week or two ago, we employed a man to cut back the tree in the garden. It was big enough to scrape off the pebble-dash on a neighbour wall. We also asked him to remove a couple of conifer stubs. Last year we had hacked away at two conifers, but the roots went deep and we did not have the right equipment.

I noticed the tree cut back, but walked right past the missing conifer stubs! There was a space in the garden that I had not noticed!

I was reading the opening chapters of the book of Acts. The story where Peter and John see the lame man sitting at the Temple gates always challenges me. The man was there everyday, Peter and John were there everyday – but they never saw him. Even more so, if the man was there everyday, then Jesus also would have seen him – the day he overturned the tables in the temple. Jesus did nothing, Peter and John for a while did nothing.

Here is my speculation on it. Jesus saw the man and he left him alone because he knew that Peter and John would one day see him and act in faith. Jesus could have healed the man, but he chose not because he trusted Peter and John to follow in his footsteps and do the things he himself did. The man was marked for healing – but not right then.

What made Peter and John turn and look this time around was the man’s appeal for help. We have been given all of our senses – our sight, our hearing, our sense of touch – all from God that he might make his appeal to us through any one of them.

Jesus has trusted each one of us to follow in his footsteps and to do things that he himself did. The plea to “Open our eyes” isn’t so we can see the light at the end of our dark tunnels, but that we can see the light at the end of dark tunnels that other people inhabit.

Too often we live with blinkers on, self absorbed and in-ward looking. God want us to use our eyes to see more than the clouds scudding across the sky. He wants us to see what He sees – be broken by it – an act to bring things in line with His word.