Learning to See Again

“Give us eyes to see and ears to hear” is a prayer my friend (and our Executive Director), Colin, has prayed numerous times over the past three years I have known him. And he’s prayed it over me within the groups he and I have been a part of – small group, congregation, youth group, teens and leaders… and, now, as part of the Good Neighbor Network Board and our microchurch, Cultivate.

As my family and I relocated to Battle Creek in 2023, the Lord gave me eyes to see on one particular morning. As I drove into the neighborhood that I teach in, the darkness fell around me. My eyes could see something that wasn’t physically there, but maybe only in the spiritual realm. I remember seeing that darkness and praying, “Please, Lord, make light.” I knew that I could be a beacon of light. That is the exact reason I was provided that job in that neighborhood. God had set me up to be His light.

Are my eyes always adjusted to this spiritual setting? Definitely not. Colin keeps praying “give us eyes to see and ears to hear”, and I keep praying, “Spirit, guide me.” As is often in the walk with Jesus, it is a daily choice of surrender and obedience to His will and not mine.

Lately I’ve had to confess to my brothers and sisters at Cultivate how blinded I have become. I continue to teach in the same neighborhood, and I still very much feel the heavy weight of some of the neighborhood families. However, there have been more than a few times that I found my heart and mind looking at a student or their family with pity, with less-than, with “weird”. And, thank Jesus for His grace to forgive me in that more than one time, because I’ve been learning to pray “Let me see them as You see them. Let me see them in Your image. Imago Dei.”

Holy Family of the Streets by Kelly Latimore (https://kellylatimoreicons.com/)

When I have the eyes to see them in the Image of God, I see them worthy of great worth, of great Love. Jesus loves them enough to die to save them. He has called me to love them with great Love. With radical love. With relational love.

This is a story of confession, I suppose. A story that I, as a Board member of GNN, am still figuring out what it means to love others well. To see those around me as Jesus does. But I, as a Board member of GNN, desperately want the Spirit to lead me to do so. So we pray, “Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Amen.”