Last month in Japan, I was in training as a new raised up squad leader.
Being able to visit and spend time with our teams was difficult. Maneuvering around our host family’s schedules, having teams spread out and split up in home stays, and living in the mountains outside of the city of Osaka, made transportation tricky.
One evening after a long day of visiting teams and traversing the city, the squad leaders had an hour and a half trip back home using the public transportation during rush hour.
As we slowly moved our way through the masses of people from one subway to the next, one station after another, all I could think about was getting out of the suffocating atmosphere as quickly as possible.
My head began to feel foggy and my heavy eyes started to retreat to a place inside myself that wanted nothing to do with the constant noise, stifling air, and rushing mass of bodies moving around me. Being an introvert and completely opposite of a city girl, I tried to imagine myself in the quiet stillness of the woods, breathing fresh air and away from concrete and people.
As I started feeding my negativity about what a draining atmosphere that was for me, and how it was the last place on earth I wanted to be in that moment, I felt a still, small voice amidst the noise speak ever so gently to my spirit:
Beloved, look at these people. See them the way I see them. They are my special possession; my creation. There are so many lost and broken people. If you are hidden inside yourself and only focusing on yourself, how can you shine my light? It’s all in your perspective..what you focus on. See them with my eyes.
As quickly as I had hit the downward spiral upon entering the claustrophobic environment, in that moment of truth, I just as quickly felt my eyes opened.
I began to see the people around me as individuals.
I noticed what their expressions were. I started wondering about their families and what their lives were like; where they might be in their walk with the Lord, and what kind of day they had.
I saw men in business suits, women in traditional Japanese clothes, teenagers in the latest styles and fashionable accessories, moms and their children, groups of friends, couples. Smiles, weariness, emptiness, faces wrought with worry.
All of a sudden everything changed.
I didn’t just feel a mass of bodies anymore. God allowed me to see through His eyes and I saw His people.
I experienced a deep love for everyone I passed by.
That night in the subway stations I was choosing to look through the lenses of my own eyes. As the scales were dropped and I saw clearly, I gained a new perspective.
I realized that not only is beauty seen in the eyes of the beholder, but it is seen through the eyes of the Beholder.
Through the eyes of the Beholder…
Joy is found.
Compassion is formed.
Love becomes natural.
That’s how His Kingdom comes to earth.
Whose eyes are you beholding from??
