Eye Witness

Das Mystiche Auge, Wikimedia Commons
Das Mystiche Auge, Wikimedia Commons
For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.  Psalm 36:9

 

In the days following cataract surgery on my right eye, after the initial bleariness subsided, I found myself totally entranced by the luminosity of the world.  Colours were amazingly bright, objects startlingly and sharply clear.  And this is my “bad” eye!

What an amazing gift sight is!  Perhaps one of the best purposes of life is to simply use our senses to experience the glory all around us, to truly see and marvel at God’s creation.

Conversely, it’s also wondrous that we are seen.  The psalmist realizes that before his own undeveloped eyes could see, God observed him.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.   Psalm 139:16

 

We are not always entirely comfortable with this all-seeing God.  I recently saw a hotel room in Las Vegas that had a stark painting of a large eye hanging on the wall.  It seems a strange choice of decoration for the city that thinks it can keep what happens in Vegas in Vegas.  Even in a city centred around gambling and pleasure, there are always two eye witnesses:  ourselves and God himself.    Apparently, God even has night vision!

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.    Psalm 139:11-12
But when we are afraid, when we need guidance, we long for God’s eyes to be focused on us.  We want to be the centre of His attention, His loving watchfulness. The slave, Hagar,  in despair in the desert, encounters this caring God.  Overwhelmed, she names him “The God Who Sees.”
We are eyewitnesses.  And we are witnessed in the eyes of God.  So we say, with the psalmist who begs for God’s eyes on him,
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
 hide me in the shadow of your wings.  Psalm 17:8