What do you see?

In the world we live in we are constantly being assaulted with all sorts of images that are trying to create a reality for us to live in and be a part of. Whether it is in the form of images on social media, images on different streaming platforms or even physical things we see at work, home and play. We are confronted with these images trying to create a reality and world in which we must live. These images trigger our emotions, thoughts, actions and faith.

The fight is to figure out what do we see. What is it that we allow our soul to take in and live from. What is it that we allow to create a reality for us becausewhat we see heavily influences our ability to thrive in life and faith.

There is what seems to be an obscure passage in the Sermon on the Mount that talks to this idea and on which I hope to elaborate to get you considering what you see more intently.

Matthew 6:22&23:

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

This is almost the middle teaching of the sermon on the mount. This collection of teachings appear scattered in the gospels of Mark and Luke but in Matthew appear as one teaching. Scholars are not sure which one is accurate to the presentation of these teachings but what is clear is that Jesus taught these key principles and truths as he was ushering in his kingdom. These teachings serve as the manifesto, the law and the visionary picture of what the Kingdom of God/Heaven is like and the type of people that are a part of it.

So where we find ourselves is in a teaching about money. What role it should have in the life of a kingdom citizen. In the middle of that teaching. Jesus mentions this thing about the eye being the lamp to the body. It feels like a right turn but actually begs a beautiful question, which is the title of the blog. What do you see?

The idea of this statement is more about the spiritual eye/s that we have being similar to the eye of the body. What the eye of the body sees is the reality in which the body must exist and make allowances for. The same is true of the gaze of the spiritual eyes. What the spiritual eyes look at and see will force the soul to exist in a particular manner and make allowances for.

What we see has a direct impact then on our souls and our ability to thrive in life and in faith. We need to consider are our eyes healthy? Do they see the light and thus give light to the whole body or do they see the darkness thus making the whole body dark.

A small example from my life. Recently, we have transitioned from living in Cape Town to living in Centurion. It has been quite a challenging move for me as I have felt a lot of grief about leaving the life we had created in Cape Town. On Instagram I had all these pages of things to do in Cape Town, date ideas in Cape Town, raising kids in Cape Town etc. (you get the idea, lots and lots of Cape Town centric pages.) I realised the more I saw these types of posts on my IG the more discontented I felt about being in Centurion. So, I started unfollowing those pages and then boom I felt content. No, not at all. It was however the beginning of the journey, the next piece was to actually follow pages for things in Gauteng (the province we are in now.) and wow what a difference. My heart became more curious about what I could find around me, I was more content that there is cool places around me now and I was drawn into learning more about the world that we are now a part of. Small example but I hope it helps illustrate the power of what we see and the influence it has on our ability to thrive in life and faith.

To go back to the context in which Jesus mentions this idea, it is sandwiched between the idea of storing up treasures in heaven over treasures on earth and then the inability to serve two masters, either we serve God or we serve money. With this teaching in the middle it would seem Jesus is saying his Kingdom will be filled with people who can look at him, his light and bring that light into their way of living. The eyes being healthy, seeing light, brings light to the whole body. This is the pursuit to life in the light of God as master and heaven as our ultimate destination.

Where can we get light into the eyes of our soul? What do we see spiritually?

1. In Psalm 119:105 - the text says the word is a lamp unto our path. In other words it is a source of light from which we can walk and move in a particular direction.

2. In John 8:12 - Jesus says of himself that he is the light of the world and whoever follows him will not walk in darkness but in light.

3. In 1 John 1:5-7 - He talks about walking in the light of Jesus then leads us to walk with others that are in the light.

These are just a few examples of light we can put our eyes on.

All of us can make the conscious effort to place our eyes on these sources of light. The more we expose our eyes to these sources the healthier our eyes can become. The healthier our eyes are the more we can enjoy thriving in life and faith.