Seeing What We Want to See

In the past few days, I've had a few items come across my Facebook feed that struck a chord in me.

The first was a video which spoke about how some people get bent out of shape about how we look when we show up to Church on Sunday morning.

The second was a story posted on a funeral home site of a young lady who passed away much too early from a heroin overdose. 

These two items made me realize just how much emphasis we put on what we see, rather than what is important. It made me realize how we see only what we want to see, rather than the truth.

Which is more important - that someone comes to Church, wants to worship God, wants to embrace and be embraced by the Body of Christ? Or that this person comes shows up in ripped jeans and a dirty tshirt?

Which is the important truth - that a young woman is just a worthless drugged out single mother? Or that this young woman had so much pain and confusion inside her and just needed to be embraced by someone willing to be God's hands?

This habit of not seeing the important and real truth is something many of us are guilty of. When we have a friend who isn't there for us every day like we believe they should be, we get angry and feel this person no longer cares. We refuse to even try to see the truth. Perhaps this person is just simply busy. Perhaps this person has so much stress and pressure on them that they are unable to meet our needs as well. Perhaps this person has slipped into such a deep depression that they're so exhausted trying to keep themselves afloat they just don't have the energy to keep anyone else afloat as well.

We are blind to the truth. It's not even blindness - it's a refusal to even bother to look. We get so self absorbed in our own needs, our own beliefs, or own desires, that we don't look further. We see people's actions, but not the motivations for those actions. We see their appearance, but not the conditions they face that lead to that appearance. We put what is on the outside above and beyond what is on the inside.

We measure a person's worth by what we see with our eyes. And when this "worth" doesn't measure up - we fail to be God's hands for this person.

Stop looking at someone with your human eyes, and instead look at them with godly eyes - with eyes of compassion and love and insight. Get to know people. Learn their story. Love them because of their story - not in spite of it. Reach out to one another regardless of how someone looks, or acts, or lives. Love one another regardless of these things.

Love as Christ loves.