Learning to Trust Your Eyes
When I was little, everything I saw led to wonder. Everything was new, exciting, and came with a curious story. I collected random little objects so that I could make them into crafty new things, and I was always finding shapes in the clouds or the rocks outside. If art was the adventure, then my vision was the map. My eyes were good, and I never doubted what they saw. They were my creative tools—my wonder-finders—until, one day, they weren’t.
Somewhere down the line, I began to doubt what I saw. Comparison stole my joy, and fear blurred my wonder into mere acknowledgement of what one should consider “beautiful.” After years of feeling like I couldn’t live up to my own creative expectations, I became bitter towards art—I even swore that I would never do anything artist post-high school. And I stuck to that, for a little while. But it kept creeping back, like that annoying rash or lingering cough you can’t seem to kick once it begins. The creativity was still alive, but my vision was blurry. So I made things. I made things to win approval, to get good grades, and to earn a salary for four years. I made what was asked of me, and I did fairly well. Some may even say that I was “successful.” But my eyes were still the villains. They were seeing only what they were intended to see in the world’s perspective; there was no room left for wonder-vision. And I know this isn’t specific to my human experience.
There are so many things working against us—attacking our voices and our vision. The Lord creates each of us with a specific mission and purpose, and the Devil attacks those specific anointings. We have to choose to either see the good that comes from the God who sees (El Roi) or to allow the bad to manifest itself in our day-to-day lives. We have to learn to receive from the guiding Spirit rather than being deceived by the dream-taker. We have to trust that our gaze upon the Lord is enough without frantically seeking the worldly “good-enough.” But in order to see, we have to take off all the greyscale glasses the world has handed us and trust that all of the colors the Lord hands us will be used to paint a beautiful image. And then we have to trust what we see and live into the vision with all of our being. Though we are surrounded by discouragement, destruction, and destitution, we have to be willing to open our eyes, every single day, to the wonder rather than the worldly indifference. We have to trust that our wonder-finders will work once again because the One who created them is very, very good.
So now is the time to direct our gaze back onto the Face of the One who loves us the most. It’s no coincidence that we were made in the image and likeness of The God Who Sees (El Roi). The Lord’s vision is clear, and he looks upon us with an all-knowing gaze. He saw us before we were formed and had all our days shaped and written down before one even came to be (Psalm 139). Now we must choose to not be disillusioned. We must take off our discouragement-goggles and replace them with our God-given wonder-finders. Our eyes were created to be tools that point us to Heaven, as they were created by the King of Heaven. He will fill our lives with colors, but we have to choose to see them. Trusting our eyes has to start with gazing upon Him. He will renew our sight because he is the God who sees.