“22 ‘The eye is the lamp of the body.
So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light;
23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
(Matthew 6:22-23)
Many would consider Fanny J. Crosby one of the most prolific hymnists ever. She wrote over 8,000 hymns. She became blind at 6 months old! Surely Jesus does not mean to be talking about our physical ability to see, our physical eyes. One of the keys to this passage must lie in pondering the nature of “lamps.” Physical eyes are the lamps to our bodies and our spiritual eyes are the lamps to our soul. We lived in a famine relief camp in Kenya for five years and one night as we ate dinner by lamplight, I set my young son on the floor to play and did not see the scorpion. Lesson learned!
The problem is that we almost always think we are right if the other would just listen to our point of view. Proverbs 16:2 tells us, “All one’s ways may be pure in one’s own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.” Unfortunately wars erupt because people see their actions as justified. Each side sees themselves as right. Abuse happens because people are right in their own eyes. We are not good people to evaluate our own actions and our friends that we discuss the issue with, may be bias also because they love us. “Love is blind.” The court system is based on “outside eyes” evaluating our case and passing an impartial verdict.
Where does that leave us today? God who created us, understands us, understands all the circumstances, understands the other with equal love and he is the only being truly able to see and judge impartially. He is the best lamp.
Let us just spend a moment now listening to this song prayer asking God to open our eyes that we might see.
On the Way to Wonder 