Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart!
I want to see you.
I want to see you.

I can’t recall the first time I sang that contemporary praise song, but I will always remember the clarity that it brought to me as I sang it. Praise songs are often criticized for being simple and repetitive, but others would say that is exactly the point. Repeating a phrase in music is a way to ensure that the meaning takes hold in your mind and in your heart. Repetition is a technique that helps a concept to be easily remembered. Do you remember singing the ABC song? I rest my case.

In this simple chorus, we ask the Holy Spirit to come and open “the eyes of our hearts” in order to see, know, and experience God more fully and more completely. The juxtaposition of heart and eyes is clever in the way that it encourages us to make a visual connection between being open to God’s presence and thus seeing him in his complexity. I think the challenge is to see God in the world around us….in the circumstances, places, and the people in our purview.

Where do you see God today? Where is he active in your daily routine?

It’s interesting to remember that this is exactly what Paul prayed for his beloved church in Ephesus. He longed for them to see God with the eyes of their hearts, too.

Ephesians 1 (Common English Bible)

¹⁵ Since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, this is the reason that ¹⁶ I don’t stop giving thanks to God for you when I remember you in my prayers. 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 power is conferred by the energy of God’s powerful strength. 

Note that when he lists the things we will see in our hearts, hope is the first thing mentioned. The hope of God’s call, his glorious inheritance, the greatness of his power, and the power of his strength are things that we see when we open the eyes of our hearts.

What do you need to see today? Have your circumstances clouded your vision? Has abuse, depression, addiction, despair, or hopelessness blinded you to God’s activity in your midst?

It happens. Those are the times when we need to blink away distractions and focus on what happened when Christ died on the cross.

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.

Christ is far above anything that distresses us today. He is stronger than any stronghold, deeper than any well of sorrow, higher than any artificial high, mightier than any words of condemnation, and more powerful than the evil one who would love to keep his hands firmly pressed against your eyes in order to blind you to the reality of God’s mercy and grace.

Open the eyes of your heart, and you will see God. He is in every circumstance…just keep looking.