No Votes Needed. The Eyes Have It.

Hearing ears…speaking mouths…seeing eyes. Oh no—eyes are so much more than seeing. They speak, too.

Eyes communicate what words cannot.

Eyes mesmerize me. I love close-up portraits the most so I can see someone’s eyes. I realized recently as I was writing stories that I often described attitudes or feelings by describing the person’s eyes. They’re so powerful! Threatening eyes. Eager eyes. Pained eyes. Twinkling eyes. They speak of something deeper.

In the Bible, the word “eye” is often used to describe something deep—grasping to describe a person’s heart, it seems. God talks about the bountiful eye, the evil eye, the mocking eye. “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matt. 6:22).

I believe that God created eyes to somehow speak what’s truly in our heart. I’ve seen angry eyes. I’ve seen tender, loving eyes. I’ve seen flirtatious eyes. I’ve seen joyful eyes. I’ve seen excited, sparkling eyes. How can we sense something only because someone didn’t meet our eye?

I remember looking across a gym once and meeting a man’s eyes—and then looking away. I did not know him. I have never felt such hardness, darkness and evil. Later that day, I looked the same man in the eye and couldn’t understand the difference. His eyes were clear and joyful. I didn’t understand—until hearing and marveling that he had just repented and become a Christian.

A number of times the Bible uses eyes to describe a condition of the heart: being wise in my own eyes. Doing whatever is right in my own eyes. God uses eyes here to communicate an opposite of fearing Him, of seeking Him, of acknowledging His greatness.

I don’t think it was coincidental that God blinded Saul’s physical eyes to get his attention on the road to Damascus. The scales fell off Paul’s eyes, and the course of his life was transformed. I think the power of Christ’s light blinding his eyes represents something deeper of how spiritually blind this religious young man was. Blindness wasn’t a distraction to get him to think about God. He needed God to open his eyes.

Throughout the Bible there’s another set of references to the eye—and the implications are incredible. God opens eyes. He can open our eyes to be seeing what He sees. He opened Hagar’s eyes to see the life-giving water for her son (Gen. 21:19). He opened Balaam’s eyes to see the angel in the road (Num. 22:31). When Elisha prayed, God opened the fearful young man’s eyes to see the horses and chariots of fire that were all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17). His commandments are pure and they enlighten our eyes (Psalm 19:18).

“Open thou mine eyes…” (Psalm 119:18).