A Heart Like Jesus

One of my favorite songs is “Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord”.  Many Christian artists have sung it in the Christian music arena and a few years ago it was popularized on the much bigger country music scene whenever country music artist Randy Travis added it to his repertoire.

The first part of the song and that which is most intriguing to me is as follows:
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You

My interest lies in the “eyes of my heart” and “I want to see You” part of the song. How do we see with our hearts?  How do we see the Lord here on earth?

The scriptures speak plenty about the heart.   In fact, we are warned that our hearts can become deceitful, hardened, and evil.  Furthermore, the scriptures encourage us to guard, protect, and keep our hearts soft, humble, gentle, and pure.  

So how does the molding and shaping of our hearts come about??  Well…life experiences to be sure, but more specifically life experiences with other people.  I don’t think life can really occur without other people.  Whether it is family, friends, neighbors, enemies, doctors, nurses, grocery store clerks, auto mechanics, telemarketers, politicians, aggressive drivers, or fast food employees, we will encounter people at some point in time during our journey here on earth.  For most folks, that is a daily encounter…good and bad.  The good people encounters are easy.  It is the bad encounters that I struggle with.  Some encounters have hardened my heart to the point that I wonder if there is any good in some folk.  These experiences that have made it difficult for me to see past the sin and brokenness in a person and remember they have a soul.  I guess you could say that for some folks, the eyes of my heart are blurry, maybe even closed.

But from the beginning, God’s plan included people.  In fact, his greatest creation was people.  We learn from Genesis 1:22, that “God created man in his own image….”  We are formed in his “likeness”, meaning somewhere in our being we possess his characteristics or “good nature”.   That’s hard to believe after observing how some folks treat others but its true.

Jesus had a heart for all people.  A heart for people, who loved him, served him, followed him, and even for those who hated him, persecuted him, and killed him.   Some of his last words while he hung on the cross was “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23: 34).  The eyes of his heart could see past the hurt, anger, shame, evil, deceit, sin and see the good in people that God had originally created.  

As hard as it may be, I think for us to open the eyes of our hearts is to find Christ in people.     
“Rich and poor have this in common:  The Lord is the Maker of them all.”  Proverbs 22:2
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”  Matthew 5:8

Father, Forgive me whenever I’ve failed to see past the sin and see the person.  Help me to be humble and mindful of the mercy that you’ve give me so that I can share your hope with others.

In Christ, Amen.

Todd Adams

Dublin, Texas