eyes to see

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19:1) Frederick Buechner wrote, "Glory is what God looks like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes."

My appearance is what I look like when all I have to look with is a pair of eyes. But what do I look like to the One who has more than just eyes with which to look? It seems to me that Jesus didn't just have eyes, but he had eyes to see. He didn't just have ears, but he had ears to hear. I wonder what the world looks like when, like Jesus, we have eyes that truly see.

The prepositions for the way that Jesus looked go beyond "at." Jesus looked at people. But he also looked "into," "through," and "after" people. He saw what His Father saw when we looked into the hearts of his friends. I wonder what he sees when he looks in our general direction.

I spent about a week in Galilee during my semester of study in Israel. I marveled at the idea that I was seeing what Jesus saw. I was seeing the landscape where Jesus spent most of his adult life. I watched the stars that Jesus would have looked up at during his late night prayer vigils. But something deep inside knows that I didn't see what he saw. And still I wonder if I see who Jesus sees all around me.