Day 269: Our Next Unconventional Act: "Turn Your Eyes FULLY Upon Jesus"
Read: John 4:16 - 18
As I am sitting here, prayerfully contemplating what the Lord would have me write for Him, an old hymn came, started rolling around in my mind, started to strum the heart strings of my spirit. "Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus". It has only one
verse: 'Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full into his wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his
glory and grace (Lemmel 1922).' Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look FULL into his wonderful face ...' What an unconventional act that would be for any one of us who believe in Jesus let alone the Samaritan woman. I
do not get the idea that even Jesus' disciples did that very often.
Each of them had much to hide.
Hide? What was there to hide? Their humanity for one. What do we have to hide but our own humanity as well. The long and the short of it is this: We like to hide all the pretense of what has gone before us from our pasts that we carry
forward into our futures. Not because we want to necessarily, we would
discard it in an instant if we thought we could get away from it
for good. But, fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, our past
is in our spiritual DNA. All the unconventional things we ever did, all that junk we had such fun doing or experienced great spiritual or physical pain from, those moments we call 'the most regrettable' are our own eternal possessions.
Could Matthew who was once called Levi, the tax collector, just forget and discard all the memories of who he once was - hated and despised by all who passed by his tax booth? Nope! Not the least bit possible. Desirable - definitely, but still not the least bit possible. What about the Samaritan woman? Married, divorced and widowed 5 times. Can she erase that - No she cannot. She keeps it 'tight to her breast'. Does not speak of it for the shame it carries. Probably holds her head down to avoid
any eye to eye contact with anyone. Then Jesus says to her "Go, call
your husband and come here." Did this woman look FULL upon Jesus' face when she responded "I have no husband?"
Nope! And this may have been a cultural sign of respect. But I also
believe it was her own effort to hide her past, to avoid lying to this
stranger who asked for the water. We want so desperately to project an
image around others that everything is okay. We do not want people to
know the truest depths of our shame, the magnitude of all our regrets, the reality of what our lives have become because of them. We pretend! Guess what my 'hide and seek' friends, and let this revelation sink in
deep: God sees behind your mask. He is not blinded by our pretense. He
is not nor will he not become deceived by deceptions. He FULLY knows who we are. So look FULLY upon who He is!
Let Us Pray: From Psalms: 120 (lying to self), 139 (Baring yourself FULLY before God)
Heavenly Father, may I never try to hide from the fullness of your
presence. Even in those moments when I am feeling the fullness of my
shame, the ungodly magnitude of my regrets upon my shoulders. You are
the God who FULLY forgives. You are the God in whose FULLNESS of self is
Mercy on an order of magnitude I cannot begin to comprehend. God, I
cannot figure it out - why do you persist in giving humanity with all the ugliness of its pretense, so many second chances? Help me to look FULLY upon your visage as you reveal the answer to my heart to help me FULLY transform my life.
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Read: John 4:16 - 18
As I am sitting here, prayerfully contemplating what the Lord would have me write for Him, an old hymn came, started rolling around in my mind, started to strum the heart strings of my spirit. "Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus". It has only one verse: 'Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full into his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace (Lemmel 1922).' Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look FULL into his wonderful face ...' What an unconventional act that would be for any one of us who believe in Jesus let alone the Samaritan woman. I do not get the idea that even Jesus' disciples did that very often. Each of them had much to hide.
Hide? What was there to hide? Their humanity for one. What do we have to hide but our own humanity as well. The long and the short of it is this: We like to hide all the pretense of what has gone before us from our pasts that we carry forward into our futures. Not because we want to necessarily, we would discard it in an instant if we thought we could get away from it for good. But, fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, our past is in our spiritual DNA. All the unconventional things we ever did, all that junk we had such fun doing or experienced great spiritual or physical pain from, those moments we call 'the most regrettable' are our own eternal possessions.
Could Matthew who was once called Levi, the tax collector, just forget and discard all the memories of who he once was - hated and despised by all who passed by his tax booth? Nope! Not the least bit possible. Desirable - definitely, but still not the least bit possible. What about the Samaritan woman? Married, divorced and widowed 5 times. Can she erase that - No she cannot. She keeps it 'tight to her breast'. Does not speak of it for the shame it carries. Probably holds her head down to avoid any eye to eye contact with anyone. Then Jesus says to her "Go, call your husband and come here." Did this woman look FULL upon Jesus' face when she responded "I have no husband?"
Nope! And this may have been a cultural sign of respect. But I also believe it was her own effort to hide her past, to avoid lying to this stranger who asked for the water. We want so desperately to project an image around others that everything is okay. We do not want people to know the truest depths of our shame, the magnitude of all our regrets, the reality of what our lives have become because of them. We pretend! Guess what my 'hide and seek' friends, and let this revelation sink in deep: God sees behind your mask. He is not blinded by our pretense. He is not nor will he not become deceived by deceptions. He FULLY knows who we are. So look FULLY upon who He is!
Let Us Pray: From Psalms: 120 (lying to self), 139 (Baring yourself FULLY before God)
Heavenly Father, may I never try to hide from the fullness of your presence. Even in those moments when I am feeling the fullness of my shame, the ungodly magnitude of my regrets upon my shoulders. You are the God who FULLY forgives. You are the God in whose FULLNESS of self is Mercy on an order of magnitude I cannot begin to comprehend. God, I cannot figure it out - why do you persist in giving humanity with all the ugliness of its pretense, so many second chances? Help me to look FULLY upon your visage as you reveal the answer to my heart to help me FULLY transform my life.
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