One of my favorite things to say to Dave is, "I wish I had your eyes!" That typically follows an event like him digging through a drawer, convinced that the pen he is searching for isn't there, leaving me to walk up, reach to the left corner of the drawer just under the notepads and beside the super glue and pull out the pen..without even having to look.
Or, it may be as he carries a no-bake cookie across the room, crumbs falling as he takes bites out of it, asking, "What?!" As I look at him disapprovingly because of the trail he leaves behind...that I will have to clean up, and that he is completely oblivious about! Yes. I wish I had those eyes! It's amazing what we don't see when we aren't looking!
We are all guilty of seeing life only through the lenses of our own eyes. We get up each day and go about our business, asking ourselves things like, "What do I want to eat today?" or , "How much time do I need to get this done?" We may think, "I hate that color of blue!" or, "I'm too tired to workout today." Basically, our thoughts tend to center around us..what we want, what we like, how we feel. We can't help it, really. We were born selfish.
Psalm 51:5 NIV
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
It's through our own eyes that we filter nearly every word or act before us. Think about the last time you were frustrated over a project or task gone-wrong. As you were in the middle of trying to get the thing back into order, imagine your wife comes in and announces she just wrecked the car. She apologizes, and even cries a little in the process. How many times do we get angry in a situation like this? Lots of times!! We perceive those kinds of events as a personal attack. You might think thoughts like, "I've told her about that curve in the road...she should have driven slower around it! She knows I'm already having a bad day! Just dry up the tears..I'm the one who should be crying!!"
I know I have done that sort of thinking quite often. It's so tempting to see only through our own lenses, forgetting that the other person may be feeling even worse than we are in that moment. Maybe the woman in this scenario has been under extreme stress at work. Maybe she was just in a hurry to get home. Either way, most don't wreck a car on purpose.
Although this is a fictitious account between a husband and wife, how often does this illustrate how we deal with others, even (or maybe especially!) the ones we love the most? How often do we feel like the other person was neglecting our feelings or just straight out abused our feelings?
Looking through our own lenses causes us to get hurt or mad at what someone says because we think they were throwing an insult at us, when maybe the words being said had nothing to do with us at all. It causes us to get frustrated at the person in front of us at the grocery store because they don't notice us trying to get through the aisle they are blocking. It causes us to block the aisle ourselves because we need a certain kind of potato chips that we can't readily find! It is dangerous to live life only looking through our own eyes. When we do, we dishonor God Himself. He teaches us to think of our brothers and sisters and to have compassion and empathy for them.
Philippians 2:1-4
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
When you close this page and go about your day, I hope you'll be inspired to lay down your lenses for a while. Put on a new pair...someone else's might be good. See what you see when you really take time to look. Maybe someone else will see your love and compassion for others and will say to you, "I wish I had your eyes!"
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