To abide in Jesus means, at the very
least, to see with his eyes—to see God, yourself, others, life with the mind
and heart of Jesus. To do that you
must stop abiding in yourself, and that, at the very least, means that you must
stop clinging to your way of seeing things, to your interpretations. If you are going to abide in Jesus and
see with his eyes you must listen to him, and you can’t actually listen if you are not aware that your
own way of seeing could be dead wrong. Well, perhaps you could listen, but you are listening to
confirm you own thoughts rather than learn new ones.
I suspect that most of us live with
the unspoken mantra, ‘If it doesn’t make sense, it can’t be true.’ Those who face this secret mantra
discover that a few more words need to be added. ‘If it doesn’t make sense to me, it can’t be true.’
This is the assumption of the fallen mind, and the single greatest
hindrance to our growth as persons in relationships. We have an awful lot invested in the way we see things. To admit that you could be as blind as a
bat is scary because we have built our security on being right. It is a false security, to be sure, but
if you don’t see with Jesus’ eyes it’s the only security you have. So you defend yourself, which is not
relationship, and does not lead to communion. How much time, I wonder, do we spend defending ourselves and
our positions rather than listening to others, and not least to Jesus? Insofar as we listen to Jesus we get to
see with his eyes, love with his heart, and experience his life. Insofar as we don’t we get to live with
ourselves and our own worlds, stuck in our own delusions, victims in a world that
doesn’t get it. And that is a lonely place.
Holy Spirit, give us Jesus’ eyes.
3 comments:
I've just discovered you! I'm learning about the Gospel by listening to John Crowder, and he mentioned you. I appreciate the thoughts expressed in this post, and I hope to pass them along (giving you credit, of course). The prospect of reading more of your writings is exciting.
Thank you.
D'Arcy Young
On the mantra, a person of any scientific Grit would have to admit that my failure to understand a thing has no bearing whatsoever on its reality; it can certainly be true regardless of how much sense it makes. But the more I understand it the easier a time I have operating my life in the presence of this reality. I'm really pretty bad at that whole " lean not on thine own understanding" thing, but my own understanding has a tendency to ask to be illuminated when it meets its limits.
Helllo mate great blog
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