During the holidays last year, I found out how greatly our sight impacts us. I needed new eyeglasses desperately, but I never took the time to address the problem because there always seemed to be something more urgently needing my attention. My glasses had gotten so scratched that I had to tilt my head to look directly at an object just to see clearly. I had gotten so used to operating like that, it changed the way I moved, and I had stopped noticing. My daughter pointed out how ridiculous I looked while she watched me wrap a Christmas gift with my head tilted back just to see where to place the tape.
I didn’t even recognize how much it was affecting me until I finally got new glasses just before Christmas. Not only did it affect my movements, I felt much happier and more confident. Everything was lighter, more colorful, and clear! Our vision is so important.
Our spiritual vision is much the same way. It affects us internally – how we feel about ourselves, how we process emotions, and how we analyze our challenges. It also affects us externally – how we interact with others and respond to our circumstances.
The lens in which we see our life, God, the world, and the people around us –
is the gateway to abundance…or…to barrenness.
How do we correct a vision that has been slowly deteriorating through years of scratches on our lens, darkening our views without us even realizing it? Many of us have tried various lens upgrades, and they help for awhile – a new exercise routine, a job change, a vacation, a new hobby. But the scratches come – turn on the tv or check your email and they come, darkening the lens and impairing the vision. In a world where brutality is news and hatred is common dialect, we need more than a lens upgrade. We need healing – a deep, true healing for our eyes that brings about a healing deeper still – a healing of our soul.
Gratitude breaks the seal to a deep soul healing.
Gratitude breaks the seal to a deep soul healing. It heals our vision and is the key that unlocks the gateway to abundance. Healed eyes see beautiful wildflowers where weeds once grew. Healed eyes see bounty instead of lack and opportunity instead of opposition. Eyes healed by gratitude’s touch are eyes wide open – eyes awakened to grace.
“Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude.”
Colossians 4:2
Gratitude healing doesn’t blind us to brutalities or sugar-coat atrocities. It shines the light on the grace that is there, always available; grace missed or distorted when lens darken. Our childhood icon, Mr. Rogers, tells of his mother’s response when he would see frightening things in the news, “Look for the helpers,” she encouraged him. Gratitude healed eyes don’t make light of tragedy, they find the light in tragedy. They search the rubble to uncover even the smallest sign of life to keep the hope-flame burning.
This flame, however small, pushes back against the darkness. Every day, eyes searching – finding grace treasure in morning dew reflecting the rising sun, and Jack Frost artwork on icy panes of glass. Neglecting to find the light – the seemingly small, everyday graces – only allows darkness to prevail.
Matthew 6:22 tells us:
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
Looking through a lens intent on finding light fills our whole body with light.
God made us to be grace-seekers. He designed us to find delight in Him, to marvel at His goodness, and to have eyes wide open to His generosity. As we make this our vision, the healing pushes deeper. Gratitude healing steps across barriers, breaks down walls, and opens doors nailed shut – mending hearts, renewing minds, and transforming lives.
Research confirms this God designed way of a light-filled life. When eyes open with gratitude, we are better emotionally, physically, and relationally. Studies show gratitude decreases depression, anxiety, stress, risk of disease, and inflammation. It increases immunity and heart health and improves relationships, sleep, and progress toward personal goals. A number of studies have also shown that gratitude is a “protective factor,” which is the opposite of a risk factor. This means that those who consistently see through a lens of gratitude have a decreased likelihood of being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even in extremely traumatizing events (1).
“The eye is the lamp of the body” verse in Matthew 6 gives us a clue where to focus our eyes – eyes trained to see grace in first sips of morning coffee, hot to the lips and gas tanks filled full and quiet walks on gravel roads. It also gives us clues on where not to focus our eyes.
The only other time the Bible references a “bad eye” or “evil eye” other than Matthew 6, is in the parable of laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20. The laborers were all hired at various times throughout the day, but when evening came and it was time to be paid, they all received the same wage. The laborers who were hired first began to grumble because it seemed unfair to them. The owner of the vineyard responds by saying, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (NIV) or “Do you begrudge my generosity?” (ESV) The actual Greek translation of this phrase reads, “Is your eye evil because I am good?”
Having a spiritually-healed vision is more than eyes intent on spotting everyday graces. It’s driving deep the healing gratitude begins. It’s recognizing unhealed wounds at the hands of an unfair God, for He is completely unfair to an unhealthy eye. The complaining laborer allowed envy and self-pity to blind him. Self-pity will always stop healing in its tracks. In Surprised by Joy C.S. Lewis warns of the severe danger of self-pity, calling it a “condition that will destroy the soul in the end.” A bad eye fills a whole body with darkness.
Having a spiritually-healed vision is more than eyes intent on spotting everyday graces. It’s driving deep the healing gratitude begins. It’s recognizing unhealed wounds at the hands of an unfair God, for He is completely unfair to an unhealthy eye.
I invited God to heal my vision and open my eyes to see His grace and abundance while reading the book, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp over a decade ago, and I still revisit this book yearly. In the book, she encourages us to count the graces around us, and I began a list on my phone of all the things I was grateful for. The more I hunted, the more I saw. Light begets light and healing begets healing.
But I didn’t allow the healing to push deep enough at first. Gratitude began to let the light in, but In the same way I tilted my head back to see through scratched lenses on my eyeglasses, I had learned to live only partially healed.
I always wondered why, in Mark 8, Jesus healed the man who was blind in two stages. Surely Jesus could have restored his sight on the first try; he had already healed the centurion’s servant from a distance by just giving His word. But maybe there are times we have only allowed God to heal us partially, and our sight has not been fully restored. Although we have begun to heal, we need a second touch.
Once I let the light reach unhealed places – cleaning out dark corners of bitterness and envy where self-pity cowered and hid – my world began to change. My eyes opened wider to see the grace potential in people and circumstances instead of weighing their potential harm. My healed heart began to build more bridges and fewer fences.
Some of us need to trade scratched lenses impairing our vision for true healing. We may not even recognize how our inability to see clearly affects us. Some of us name our graces – writing them neatly in a gratitude journal, listing them on our phones, whispering “Thank you, Jesus” under our breath as we catch the grace-gift. Light has begun to fill eyes with beauty and abundance, yet many of us need a second touch. We need to allow God to push the healing deep. Dark corners of the soul reached by eyes open wide. Tis the season to be thankful. Open gratitude-healed eyes and let light fill you full.
‘Tis the season to be thankful. Open gratitude-healed eyes and let light fill you full.
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