As Christians, we often struggle to be what we think God wants us to be, but I don’t believe we have a being problem as much as we have a seeing problem. In my last blog post, I proposed the idea that God is more concerned over how good we see than how good we look. If that is true, then what do we need to see? Is it physical vision or spiritual vision that we are lacking? The answer is probably both, since the two are so intricately connected.

The old saying “You can’t see the forest for the trees” clearly describes my own condition. I am totally focused on the trees in my physical life as well as my spiritual life. On the other hand, God is looking at the forests of life and the world beyond. I believe He desires for us to look past our current problems, beliefs, and opinions in order to catch a view from where He sits. But to do so, we must first embrace the fact that there is much more than we currently see in the physical and spiritual realms.

In 2 Kings 6, we find the story of Elisha and his servant completely surrounded by their enemies. But Elisha saw something his servant didn’t see. Verse 17 says: “Then Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!’ The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.” (NLT) Whether it was enhanced physical or spiritual vision the Lord granted Elisha’s servant, who can say? But there are two important points to be made here: 1) Elisha had better vision than the frightened, young servant, and 2) what we are able to see directly affects our peace of mind.

Ever wonder what you would see if God answered an Elisha-kind-of-prayer for you? How might that be different from what you now see? One thing that would be different for me is the scope of things. Whenever I consider just how big the world is that God oversees, I am afraid there is a huge contrast between my small view and God’s panoramic view. If only we could see things from His perspective, perhaps we would not struggle so much to be Christlike, but rather we would understand the very eternal reasons to be like Him and think like Him. Seeing from God’s perspective could literally change who we are and how we live. It certainly did for the apostle Paul after his drastic eye surgery on the Damascus Road.

How do we begin to look for the bigger picture? Since we already see what we see and know what we know, maybe we should search out what others have to say. This old familiar saying might apply here:  “If you always think what you’ve always thought; you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Are we brave enough to ask God to expand our vision, and as a result, change our thinking? Can we sincerely pray the words to the popular worship song, Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord?

In the coming weeks we are going to examine some things of God that are not in clear sight and what hinders people from seeing them. Once we discover how to get a God-sized view of His world and the people in it, hopefully we will come away with an improved answer to the question: “How good do I see?” My prayer is that we will begin to see with the eyes of our heart as never before. ~Janie Kellogg