The Extra Set of Eyes

Do you find yourself

ü  beating yourself up over past mistakes?

ü  reliving your past screw-ups that put you where you are today?

ü  wallowing in your past sins?

ü  decreeing yourself unworthy because of your present sin?

ü  doubting that God can or will ever forgive you for your sin?

All too often we rely on just our own eyes.  Those are the eyes that see us as we truly are.  The eyes of others may see some of who we really are, but it is those two eyes looking back at us in the mirror each morning as we shave that see the real us—and we know it as we stare back at them.  It is often in those solitary moments that we know how broken we are, just how much we have failed ourselves, our families, and God. 

At those moments we are quick to pass judgment on ourselves aren’t we?  We can do a good job of being judge, jury, and executioner can’t we?  That’s because we are looking through our own eyes.

We tend to forget about the extra set of eyes when we’re busy being judge, jury, and executioner.  We can easily forget that there is that other set of eyes that sees all there is to see about us, even that which we try our hardest to hide.  The extra set of eyes is God’s eyes.  The wonderful thing about that set of eyes is that it sees all there is about us—not just the bad, but most importantly, the good in us and about us, something we often forget. 

God sees our bad side and He knows it is there because we are broken men.  He also knows our good side, our hearts and the soft spots within it.  And I somehow sense that, being the loving Father that He is, He looks for the good while seeing the bad in us.  One of the greatest and most noble things we as broken men can do is to acknowledge the bad that we see with our own eyes, and ask His forgiveness for those things.  Nothing can be more pleasing to the extra set of eyes than seeing us come to Him seeking His forgiveness. 

Bottom Line Thought:  Perhaps us guys need to assume that there is an extra set of eyes staring over our shoulder as we shave in the morning, and then rest in the knowledge that those eyes are seeing good in us that we can’t see.