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| Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. |
| —Psalm 119:18 |
Has a friend ever stopped you outside a gathering, taken you by the arm, and asked you to close your eyes because he or she had a surprise for you? Then, your friend led you into a room, told you to open your eyes, and presented you with some notable surprise? If so, you can begin to understand the prayer contained within the Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post.
The Psalmist asks God to open his eyes so that he can see more clearly the wonderful things that God has brought about because of obedience to His will and His written Word, expressed through the Law that God has given to His chosen people. Can you imagine praying this prayer?
God wants us to view the world, more and more, through His vision of what can and should be. Instead of seeing the world as it is—mired in sin, on a path of total destruction, unable to extract itself by itself from the pathway people have chosen for themselves and for others—God wants His chosen people to see the world as He designed it to be.
It is quite appropriate for us to pray this prayer of the Psalmist. We can certainly ask God to open our eyes—our physical eyes and our spiritual eyes—to a vision of what He desires our world to become through the testimony of His mercy, grace, and love that we can share with those who cross the pathway of our lives. He has given us this charge. And, as we respond in obedience to His perfect will and His written Word, His New Covenant law will take root in our hearts and minds.
From this position of strength, we can follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit to speak words of love to those we meet on the road of life. Sometimes those words will be words of conviction. Sometimes those words will be words calling for repentance. Sometimes those words will be words of comfort. Sometimes those words will be words of encouragement. Sometimes those words will be words of hope. Always, those words will be words spoken in gentleness and bathed in God-given love.
As we move out into the world this day, let us begin by praying the Psalmist’s prayer. Then, let us determine to take every opportunity to share the vision of what could be with those God sends our way.
