God Eyes
Yesterday, I realized that I don’t distinguish between God and Jesus except when I need to deal with the downside of my own or others’ humanity. Then I reflect on the Jesus of the Scriptures and see how open he was to growing in understanding and wholeness. When I see the overview of how drastically Jesus changed his ideas and choices through interaction with people different from him and then going apart to pray, reflect, and listen to what God was saying through those life challenges, it gives me hope for myself and humanity. And it motivates me to stop and listen to God through my everyday life experiences. If I struggle with the same thing over and over, obviously I am not paying attention. The rough spots, the challenges, unfamiliar ideas, the people that make me uncomfortable are God calling.
Sometimes, I just HATE knowing that!
And sometimes I even have to mentally put my fingers in my ears and sing to myself, “Jesus loves me…………..” until that assurance of love gives me the courage to recognize that when something about another person pushes my emotional buttons, it’s because of something related that I don’t want to know about myself.
On the positive side, I realize that I also have God eyes. I experience not only pleasure, but the sheer joy of seeing God in the beauty in nature, momentary kindness in people, laughter of children, and my own humor at my weirdness, silliness and even brokenness.
Wow! That has been such a life affirming and empowering gift.
I’m pretty sure those two different aspects of openness are wholeness.
And wholeness is the path of the journey to holiness.
Strangely, what triggered this awareness yesterday was a friend mentioning sadly that none of the Christmas cards she received had anything about Jesus on them. They had birds and animals and lovely landscapes, but no nativity scenes. I realized that I used to feel the same lack of spirituality when cards only had beautiful nature or just happy people on them, but now I feel God in all those things everyday, so I see God in pictures of them too.
And I am really beginning to see this as not only progress, but as what Jesus is all about. Jesus is our main clue to the immanence of God, not just God’s transcendence. Jesus gives us God eyes. God in the natural, God in the limited, God in human incompleteness. God in our funky little unfinished selves.
Rejoice and be glad in it! If God is in the beauty of the cardinal who pushes the little birds off the feeders, if God is in the beauty of the daffodil that goes through cycles of ugly withering and beautiful blooming, God is in us and our cycles of dying and becoming new.
Jesus loves us because he has God eyes too.
Posted on December 24, 2017, in Christmas, discernment, epiphanies, evolving, Gifts of Age, Jesus, Love, Moments of Wonder, Nature, Paradox, peace, rebirth, spiritual growth, Teaching/Learning Experiences and tagged finding God in the imperfect, having God eyes, Jesus sees God in us, listening to our challenges, openness to our being unfinished and recognizing God in it, seeing God in the unfinished, the journey to wholeness. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
Laughter: Carbonated Grace 
Merry Christmas Eileen xx
LikeLike
Merry Christmas, Robert. Wishing you and those you love blessings great and small now and in 2018.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amen to your musings.
LikeLike
Extroverts don’t know what we’re thinking until we express it! So, a lot of times I’m “hearing” what I think for the first time too! Thanks for affirming the meanderings of an old lady!
LikeLike
Thanks for this post. I lost my dad…. and my mom has been in suicidal depression since his death. So, basically I lost both my parents…and yes, it’s VERY hard. It’s been over six years since my dad passed away and there is still a Huge void. Although it’s difficult, it has made me strong and now I can help others in their sorrows. I wrote a post about this a while back called ” Dealing With my Mom’s Depression” I hope you get a chance to read it. Thanks again for the post.
LikeLike
How hard that is. I will pray for healing for everyone involved. My father died when I was 25 and it took me six years to finally grieve and let go. I was so angry with God, I stopped believing in a God. That was easier than being angry. For a long time I just filled my life with the pleasures of this world, but as my children got older, I began to seek. I found a much more personal and vital faith through friends who gave up their easy affluent life style to work for Campus Crusade for Christ. They weren’t recruiting for any denomination, just telling others that the core of the Christian faith is a personal relationship with Jesus who fleshed out the unconditional love of God. It made a huge difference in my life. When 15 years later my mother came to live with us with Alzheimer’s. Her slow dying by inches was another even harder faith stretching challenge. I got through it by watching and listening for God in my daily life. One day as I was waiting to meet a friend, I was praying and crying in my car. I noticed a sign on a small gift shop near by. I suddenly felt a need to go in there. As soon as I walked in a card with large colorful writing immediately caught my attention. It said, “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” Remember to keep your “God eyes” open. The small blessings can get us through the faith stretching challenges. Shall read your posts and follow your blog, though I get very behind in reading posts some times.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Laughter: Carbonated Grace and commented:
I needed this re-blog as a reminder, so re-posting in case anyone else also does.
LikeLike