Give Me Your Eyes

In a few weeks I’m singing “Give me your eyes” by Brandon Heath.

Here’s the music video.

Here’s what it has done in me.

I first heard this song in the pre-service iTunes mix before church one weekend when I was singing.  At every service about 10 minutes before start, I could here the chorus.

That following week I bought the album from Zune Marketplace and started listening to it at work.

It’s amazing when a song seems to have caught up with you at just the right time.  I found myself a few months away from a trip to India to reach people that normally where far beyond my reach.

I suppose this song hits me like so many other people.  We can get so caught up in the stuff of our lives that we forget the people on the path of our lives.  We have our agendas.  Our appointments.  Our calendars.  We have our priorities.  Our high-profile personalities.  We have family time.  We have work.  We have this incessant need to be entertained.  Some of us work hard so we can play hard.  But then we get a salary cut back.  We get laid off.  Suddenly the reason for our work (cash for entertainment) is no longer what it was and we feel the pinch.

It doesn’t matter what our profession is, we can forget the people on the journey.  Ministry professionals sometimes find themselves so busy with the machine of church that they forget why they ever entered into ministry in the first place.  Believe me, it’s possible.  I’ve been there.

And we can work in a marketplace where daily we have to “breathe in the familiar shock of confusion and chaos.”  When we’re one of the people running around from thing to thing to thing, it’s easy to forget or overlook everyone around us who is running just as fast.

Jesus didn’t do that.

Once, when he was on his way to something very important, he paused to hear a story. (read luke 80.40-55)  To us this looks like mismatched priorities: there is a girl dying and he stops to talk with someone who has been suffering for 12 years.  Wouldn’t it appear that the dying girl is a higher priority?  This woman, although she is suffering, is not dying.  Put yourself in Jairus’ shoes.  Wouldn’t it have made more sense to rush to his daughter, then come back for this woman?  I have to admit, if my daughter were dying I would expect this woman to be able to wait another hour or so in order to save my daughter’s life.

That’s not what Jesus did.   Did he have something better in mind?  Or did he just not let the consequences of his actions deter him, because he knew the power of God over them?

I love how the video illustrates the message of the song.  People don’t have to speed past us like a flat film narrative we are watching in 360 while we go about living our real life all by ourselves.  People are there to be engaged.  I call out to God for help because I need an adjustment in the way I look at things;  “I want to be able to see ‘the way you’ve seen the people all alone.’ “

So God (because my vision problem is in such a critical state) has called me to Tamilnadu, India, for a ten-day “vision clinic” of sorts.  This will no doubt change what I see.  But not permanently.  I need spiritual vision therapy, not just 3D glasses only to wear during a quick flick on Sundays.

I have to be honest.  It is easier for me to conceive flying half-way around the world and loving people who don’t have showers or toilets, than it is to love some of the people I work with.  I want to fly to people in Tamilnadu, and run from those I work with.  People near me I see more clearly.  I know the patterns.  I can predict the annoying responses.  I’ve been burnt and I don’t want to chance it.  But someone I’ve never met across the globe?  I can lay aside annoyances for the shallow frailties they are, because I am constantly aware of my own.

This is how bad my eyes are: I can see more clearly half-way around the world than I can at my own office.  Or in my own family.  Or at that other church.  Or even at my own…

…while the Christ I say I follow looks at those in his family, and those outside his family, with the same eyes.

Give me your eyes for just one second.
Give me your eyes so I can see;
everything that I keep missing.
Give me your love for humanity.

Give me your arms for the broken-hearted;
the ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten.
Give me your eyes so I can see.