A contemporary praise song leads with the phrase “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. I want to see you.” This wording invites us to ponder what it means to have eyes in our hearts. Not to be taken literally by any means, it does seem to imply a way of perceiving and knowing God in a way that relies more on our emotional quotient, our “EQ'” than our intelligence quotient, than our “IQ.” It invites us to consider not what we know, but what we feel. Do you feel God moving in your soul? What emotions are experienced when you see God revealed in marvelous ways? What does your heart tell you?

John Wesley experienced a dramatic revelation of God when he was listening to someone teach one day. Take note of that: he was listening. He wasn’t preaching, attending to the sick, observing the wonderful works of God in nature, converting the prisoners: He was listening. He had grown quite discouraged in his ministry and was contemplating leaving. A friend advised him to “preach faith, and then when you find it, preach it some more.” He dragged his weary spirit to a meeting in Aldersgate and then it happened. The speaker read from Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to Romans when suddenly he felt his “heart strangely warmed.” Wesley wrote in his journal: “While he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me for the law of sin and death.”

God had opened the eyes of his heart, and a movement that would eventually become The United Methodist Church was born.

Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus employs this same beautiful language.

Ephesians 1 (Common English Bible)

¹⁷ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation that makes God known to you. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious inheritance among believers, ¹⁹ and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is working among us believers.

This church was struggling mightily with many corrosive issues that threatened to undo them. This group of former gentiles had little structure or understanding of God’s plan for salvation. The rulers of the present day were evil and not to be followed. Paul desired that they open the eyes of their heart to the power of God at work in Christ; a power far greater than any earthy ruler or authority. He wanted them to open the eyes of their hearts to the place that Christ’s body, the church, had in leading the world.

This power is conferred by the energy of God’s powerful strength. ²⁰ God’s power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at God’s right side in the heavens, ²¹ far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future. ²² God put everything under Christ’s feet and made him head of everything in the church, ²³ which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.

Is God dealing with you today? What issues are you facing? Have you lost sight of God’s power to redeem and sustain you?

Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord. We need to see you.

The Energy of God’s Strength by Kathy Schumacher