“Open Your Eyes”

“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”

Psalms 119:18

I have mentioned on several occasions that we live surrounded by woods. It’s very common to see animals come into the yard. We see deer, raccoons, foxes, groundhogs, and many other animals on a daily basis. (Unfortunately lately a coyote.) Ok, so maybe they have spread the word that there is always food here because we always throw leftovers or stale bread into the backyard for them to eat and we have a deer feeder. One time I saw a raccoon wandering around looking for food, so my husband opened the door to throw out some stale bread at which time the raccoon ran back into the woods. I stood by the window to see what would happen and sure enough, back he came. I watched as he slowly sniffed his way around the backyard. At one point he got up on his hind legs and was sniffing into the air. I thought to myself, “Well now he will get the bread.” He kept going all

around the yard and as I watched from my window I was saying, “Over there, there it is over there.” He still kept walking all over the place and at one point was almost right up to the bread but must not have seen it and turned around and walked right back into the woods.

Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:”

Jeremiah 5:21

I was still saying, “Turn around, you almost had it, you were so close to having a good meal.” As I thought about that scene a little later, I thought sadly to myself, “I wonder how many times God has placed something good in my life and even though I was searching, I gave up and missed it?” How many times in our lives have we been searching for answers and if we just hadn’t given up, we would have been blessed with the answers that God had right there for us, but we just didn’t

see. We gave up too soon. I read this story and thought it was very appropriate and interesting.

“In the 1860s, the Comstock Lode in western Nevada became one of the most  lucrative mining strikes in American history, yielding hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and silver. But, amazingly, those who mined this site almost missed these riches. Sparked by the California gold rush in 1848, earlier prospectors had searched western Nevada, focusing on the quest for gold. But, as Ronald James points out in his book, “The Roar and the Silence,” because of their obsession with gold, the first miners did not realize they were “digging into one of the wealthiest silver lodes in the world...Miners ignored the mineral-bearing black rock and pursued the precious metal they knew best. Eventually, it was realized that these

rocks were rich in silver, and the Comstock boom began. But countless miners had failed to realize that their hands were touching great riches. They had lost a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity, because they were not discerning enough to examine the rocks that were before them.”

“And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.

And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold,

the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

2 Kings 6:17

We may be searching and thinking that we haven’t found what we are looking for when God may have the answer right in front of us but maybe not the answer we were looking for. God always knows what is BEST for us even when we think it is something else. So, open your eyes and keep on searching. Keep on praying. God will answer if we don’t give up.

God never gives up on us. He is working even when we can’t see Him and in ways that we don’t know. Don’t stop praying! Don’t stop searching! You may be quitting right on the verge of victory. How sad that would be to find out in eternity the great things that God had in store for us but we quit just short of His blessing in our life and God was in Heaven tenderly saying, “Don’t stop, keep going, you are almost there, my blessings are right in front of you, just keep going!”

Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus.

To reach out and touch Him and say that I love Him.

Open my ears Lord and help me to listen.

Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus!

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.”

Matthew 13:16