"Seeing Clearly"

EPISODE 9

Open Your Eyes

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Unfortunately, I was never blessed with the ability to see the hidden pictures in those popular Magic Eye books growing up. As hard as I tried, staring at a mishmash of squiggly lines and colors never produced the eye-popping 3-D results that my friends were quickly able to discern. They say the trick is to see beyond the image, to look through it as if you see something far away. But no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to make it work.

“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart”” (1 Sam. 16:7).

What Can You Hide?

The truth is, we as humans cannot see lots of things hiding in plain sight all around us. When we consider God’s response in Job 38-39 — a lengthy list of things that we are utterly incapable of perceiving — we realize just how limited our vision is. Though we may be blind to many of the deeper truths around us, God’s sight is perfect! Too often though, we convince ourselves that things are what they appear to be on the outside. Most of the time we’re easily misled by our own eyes. For example, we used to have a puppy who would hide her head under the bed whenever we were leaving the house. But though she couldn’t see us from under the bed, we were quickly able to see her. So what can we hide from a God who sees everything?

What Are You Not Seeing?

Have you ever caught yourself drawing conclusions about others based on race, gender, beauty, or any other outward characteristics? That was Samuel’s problem when searching for the next king. He came to one of Jesse’s sons and said, “Surely, this is the next king!” (1 Sam. 16:6). God, however, had another man in mind for the job, someone Samuel would have never expected on the surface. Our vision is limited to what’s on the surface, but God sees into the heart. What a comfort to know that he doesn’t show prejudice based on external attributes we cannot change anyway! So next time you see someone and begin to sum them up on appearances alone, ask yourself, “What am I not seeing?”