Through His eyes

I originally wrote this post back in October of 2008. Lately this song has been coming to mind AGAIN because of another Bible study I'm doing. So I thought it might be time to revisit it.

I've just finished my Bible study for the day. These past two days the study has been about laying aside our judgment of others. I struggle with this sometimes, because I love to be right and if I lay aside my judgment it means I'm laying down the desire to PROVE that I'm right. Most of all, it means I'm laying down my pride, the pride that tends to ignore all of the broken parts of myself, all of the repair work that God has had to do on my life, all of the forgiveness and mercy I've been granted. I lay down my pride and I look in the eyes of another person and see myself. More than that, I see the potential for God to move in their lives in the way he's moved in mine.


The past few days this song has been echoing in my head and it seems appropriate. If I'm to lay aside my judgment I need to see people the way God sees them. And so my prayer echoes the words of Brandon Heath's song "Give Me Your Eyes":

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see







Update 2010:

I was thinking about this song again last night at Bible study, and guess what was playing on my radio when I woke up this morning.

Here's what I'm learning about having His eyes. It hurts. It hurts with a pain that is very nearly physical, the pain of a heart that is breaking along with God's. Having His eyes is one thing to ask, it is another thing to move beyond just having His eyes to asking "What do you want me to do, God?"

The study we are doing now is the popular "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby. We learn to experience God by joining Him in His work around us. In order to join Him where He is at work I NEED to have His eyes. But when I see through them I see broken people, I see pain. I see past the shell of someone I don't like and into a heart that is crushed beneath the weight of life, of choices made and unmade, of waiting for love that seems elusive. And it hurts.

But I wouldn't have it any other way, because one thing I know is that I am loved greatly, deeply, unendingly by the One who gave His only child for me. If I can plant the seeds in someone's life that grow into an understanding of that same love for them, then it is worth it. So I cry out with every breath I take "Lord, give me YOUR eyes."

Connections

I think that Gates was almost three when I truly began to realize that something was not quite right. He'd hit all of the normal developmental milestones right up until it came to talking. And there he stuck. Our communication consisted of one word statements. Tractor. Ball. Milk. I waited and waited for the burst of language to come. I blamed myself for not talking to him more, for putting him in an infant daycare where the husband was partially deaf, for not being proactive enough in developing language. Car. Truck. Book.

He had amazed us shortly after turning two by being able to name every letter of the alphabet. "My child is a genious!" I thought. Juice. Grandpa. Kitty. Slowly his vocabulary grew and he expanded to short sentences of several words. But he wasn't communicating with me. There was no give and take.

His vocabulary continued to grow, but so did my sadness at not being able to truly communicate with him. I talked to him and it was as if he didn't understand at all. At age four I finally took him to be evaluated.

"He meets the criteria for being developmentally delayed in receptive language," they said. "He is also significantly delayed in his gross motor skills."

"No," I thought, "not my child. He could say the alphabet when he was two. He has a great vocabulary." Did he really need special services to help him? Sometimes as parents we beach our boat on the vanishing sandbar of denial, knowing it is eroding beneath us, but not willing to launch ourselves into a sea of desperation.

Eventually I accepted it; I enrolled him in the early childhood education program, speech and occupational therapy. And one day we had a conversation. Not just me talking at him, but him responding as well. Four years later we know he has Aspergers Syndrome, we know that social communication will always be a struggle for him. He can fill your ears with incredible repetitions of facts, questions, rambling while failing to really connect as a person. But for every step he takes in learning to connect, we are right there, waiting, delighted, rejoicing at his efforts.

Sometimes we approach God as if we had Aspergers. We have memorized incredible amounts of facts about him, we can talk about him ad nauseum, we can talk AT him. But we stop short of the give and take of true communication. Communication. Communion. Combined.

And God waits. He waits through the developmental stages of our early faith, when we are exploring this world of "Christianity". He waits as we mature, as we develop a bigger vocabulary to talk about him. He waits as we learn words like "Exegisis," "Dispensationalism," "Calvinism."

Sometimes we stay there, content with our impressive knowledge, our ability to talk about God, even our ability to ask the deep theological questions which we rarely have the patience to wait for the answers on.

But sometimes within our Aspie little selves is that desire to make a connection, the understanding that communication is more than words. Sometimes we look God square in the face and say "I love you." Sometimes we have the patience to stick around for him to answer back. Sometimes we listen. Sometimes we reach out. Connection. Communion. Worship.