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Sights for sore eyes
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
First Week of Advent
Luke 10:21
Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to innocent newcomers. Such has been your gracious will.”
What things were hidden? The disciples returned from their first mission trip filled with stories of healings and deliverances. Jesus said he “saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky.”
Why don’t we see what Jesus sees? When will we see what the disciples saw? Am I a know-it-all? Am I “wise and learned,” as other translations sarcastically put it?
How can I be a little child, innocent, a newcomer, when my mind is so full of itself? I want to know what there is to know. And then more, always more. But my motivation is often wrong. I want to control the world I’m in. I know that’s true. I hate it, but I know it’s true. My thirst for knowledge, deep down and dirty, is driven by fear.
Over and over I’m brought back to task by the simple statement of a German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. “Don’t seek now the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Jesus longs for me to see what he sees. Of that I have no doubt. And gradually, without noticing it, I know I am beginning to.
The point is, Jesus, that I want to look at you. Look you in the face, see the whites of your eyes, and let you see mine. Whatever questions I have are resolved in this other kind of knowing, the kind you showed Job and want to show me. I had heard of you, but now I am seeing you, Jesus. Oh, Lord, help me open up my eyes!
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1297
