I have a zillion things on my to-do list yet I have been sitting at the computer staring at the screen, or glancing every now and then outside at the dreary day. I love a rainy day, and yet lately, the lack of sun depresses me. So my son put on some music and started the fire in the fireplace, though it’s 61 degrees outside. Not exactly fireplace weather, but it does seem to help the mood.
So I’m enjoying the fire and my husband watching football at my side. A few moments ago, Randy got up from his chair and asked if I wanted anything.
Still fighting my funky mood, I said, “A new body with less pounds on it. New eyes that didn’t bother me when I’m on the computer.”
“I meant did you want something to drink?”
“Oh. Drat.” But of course, I was asking him for things he couldn’t give me. And if I wasn’t feeling so lazy, I would get up and exercise away some of the pounds instead of eating more chocolate…
I was reading 2 Corinthians earlier this week and came across a verse that made me pause. I’m sure I’m taking it slightly out of context, but I think it can apply to more than what the context indicates. It said:
“You are looking only on the surface of things.” 2 Corinthians 10:7a NIV
I followed a footnote in my NIV to John’s Gospel where Jesus told the religious leaders that they needed to learn to judge things rightly. They would circumcise a child on the Sabbath to fulfill the law of Moses but then turn around and complain at Jesus for healing a man and making him whole on that same day of the week. Jesus wanted his listeners to think what that meant. Did they really think God disapproved of doing good on the Sabbath? He wanted them to stop looking at things only on the surface.
I was thinking how easily as human beings we judge others based only on what we see. We assign motives to people that we can’t prove. We judge a book (literally and figuratively) by its cover without ever reading it. We assume personality or profession about a person by outward appearances. And most of the time, we never step beneath the surface to try to see what it is we are judging.
I think what troubles me most is that when Christians are judging, they can come across more angry than loving, more condemning than kind. But Jesus said, “I have not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it.” He saw people as sheep without a shepherd. He nurtured. He taught. He preached. He healed.
He saw below the surface of things.
But “Man looks at the outward appearance, while God looks at the heart.”
Perhaps we need to pray for eyes to do the same.
Selah~
