The Eyes of God

When I was a child, I felt very uncomfortable when someone would make me look at them in the eyes. Growing up there were some people who often looked at me with disgust and there would be so much anger in their eyes. Their eyes, their words, and their facial expressions made me feel like I was a bad person, and I became very observant of people's body language. I always tried to look for signs that I said something wrong, usually first noticing how their eyes would look. 

Earlier this past week, I was doing a worship night where I drew a picture while worship music was on. I thought of it being the Eyes of God. I realized I only drew one eye, but I imagined that there were seven eyes like what is described in the book of Revelation. I imagined the seven eyes on the Lamb of God as described in Revelation 5. I imagined each eye looking similar to the one that I drew. Of course, I don't have an exact picture of what the Lord's eyes would look like, but I was drawing during a worship night what I could imagine about the Lord based on what I have read through the Bible. It will be amazing to one day come face to face with the Lord.

I think of a Lamb as gentle and vulnerable. I was a very sensitive child in a world where I got yelled at for crying. I often felt the need to hide my tears from the world that would look at me with annoyance whenever I cried growing up. Although I was working on expressing emotions in counseling, I was not met with much gentleness or my own acceptance of having emotions until high school, and especially in college when I opened up more. Going into college, I was met by a Christian community that really allowed me to feel my very sensitive emotions. 

The flame I feel represents the light, warmth, and power of God’s love for us. The light leads us through any darkness in our lives. The light of the fire leads us along the right path as God is the light of the World. It is like the shepherds being led to baby Jesus the Messiah. The light guides us through the dark times in our lives with the hope and faith that the Lord is right there with us. The warmth of the flames brings the feeling of warmth from the presence of God. I feel peace in the presence of the flame of God because not only does it provide light to the darkness, but warmth and gentleness. The power is the ability for God’s fire to spread. God's love is able to spread to those around us when we share about him to the people in our lives. Throughout scripture, the power of God is displayed, not as an act of pride where Jesus was showing off what he could do, but as an act of love. Scripture talks many times about the heart of the Lord being moved when he performed miracles. Life in the presence of God is less about the circumstances we are in, and more about the eternity we are met with when accepting Jesus into our hearts. 

The cross represents the lens God sees us through. God doesn’t see us through the lens of our sin, but through the lens of Jesus’s sacrifice. This allows God to see us through forgiveness and love as his children. I use hearts a lot with showing how God loves us. At the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I was asking myself this question many times: why does God even love me? I was struggling with my identity realizing how much I have fallen short of the glory of God. I always felt this need to be good enough to receive love. I couldn't understand how God could love me when I just felt so wrong in everything I was doing. Of course, God's love is deep and extravagant and doesn't make sense sometimes, but I came to realize that God loves me because I am his child, not because I have done something absolutely amazing to earn his love and not because of my testimony. Simply, I am his child who he created. 

I drew this image while worshipping. When I went to work the next day, I was thinking about eye contact with Jesus. Where I have always been uncomfortable with a lot of eye contact for a long time or being forced to look at someone in the eyes, God showed me that I can look directly into God’s eye without looking at angry or judgmental eyes. Instead, I can look into the eyes of the King of kings who delights in me, who loves me, and who when I seek his face I am met with this powerful love that brings light to the darkness of this world. I didn’t need to be uncomfortable when looking into the eyes of Jesus. I could look to Jesus to see everything described above. I could look into the loving eyes of God, and I could be comforted in knowing that even in the times when I have sinned and fallen short of his glory, his love is unconditional. Where I have felt the need to earn love, God has shown me so much of how he sees me, and how I can look at others. 

God allows for us to be filled with his love, so we don’t look at people in disgust but with love. There are amazing people in my life who do look at me with love, but this powerful image of God’s eyes was just what got me to realize what it means to be looked at with love. It also made me realize how through the love of God, I can look at others with love because they need to be looked at with love. I know that people have been looked at with disgust, with anger leading them to feel worthless, unloved and believing so many lies; I know how that feels. Therefore I know that where my eyes have seek the Lord’s faced met by his love, and through the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, I could look at others with deep love and compassion. 

Revelation 1:14- The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 

Read Romans 6