Sermon Lessons: Clarity

 ^22-23"Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!"

(Matthew 6:22-23)

As a nurse, one of the first things I notice in my assessment of a patient is the clarity of their eyes.  The eyes really tell a lot about what is going on with a person.  Whenever one of the boys gets sick, I look to the eyes, often seeing reddened "rings" around their eye, making the eyes themselves look a little "hallow" and "sad".  They may not open their eyes as wide, and the "crystal-clear" appearance of the eye may look a little "foggy" or "dry".  See, the eye really can "alert" us to much that is going on inside a man!

I may not know all the specifics of what is making the child "ill" at that moment, but the eyes "betray" the thing that is happening in their body!  The same is true with our eyes when it comes to emotional and spiritual matters.  They affect the "clarity" of our eyes, as well!  For example, ever see a man so stressed by what he has managed to get himself into by not being able to say "no"?  His eyes betray much about his situation - he appears like there is no hope of being out from under his burdens, his lack of rest, and his fear of failure.

Whenever you want to "meddle" a little into the life of another - simply examine the eyes.  You don't even have to ask much to see that the person is hurting, they are playful, or they are weighed down by some circumstance. The truth is that the eyes are indeed windows into our souls.  They betray the true condition of the heart.  Whatever is within a man will be on display through the eyes.  Maybe that is how moms all over the world know when their children are lying to them!!!

Try as we might, we cannot successfully hide what is hidden deep.  We think we "pack it away" very successfully - but as Jesus puts it, either we display the good, or the not so good!  There have been many times that I told a friend that their eyes "betray" them - even when they are saying everything is "all right" in their lives.  The sadness or pain displayed in their eyes says more than their words do.  We would do well to look beyond the words!

So, why is this important?  Simply put, what we allow into our lives affects what others perceive from our lives.  We are mirrors of what is within - through the "eye-gate" of our souls.  When we begin to be selective about what we will allow into our lives, we are also making choices about the "window-treatments" we are allowing for the windows of our soul!