By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“Choose to view life through God’s eyes.”

–  Charles R. Swindoll

Glasses wearers everywhere know my pain. It seems that once, twice, three times a day I’m always cleaning off my glasses. Dust, fingerprints, and grime always make their way on my glasses.

Smudges on your glasses can be distracting. It fogs up your view and annoys the snot out of you. On the contrary, cleaning your glasses is one of the best feelings in the world. I have these moist wipes on my desk that work really well at erasing most of the muck. After looking through filth riddled lenses for a week, finally cleaning them off and putting them on, makes you feel like a new person.

How’d I go so long looking through those dirty glasses?

On top of this, I remember when my prescription changed. It turned out that my eyesight was worse than I thought. I remember putting on my new pair of glasses and it was like seeing the world in 3-D for the first time. Talk about a change in perspective!

Each of us, whether we have glasses or not, see the world through a lens. People, interactions, situations, and circumstances all filter through our lenses. And our lenses determine how we will see the world.

Have you ever met someone who was negative all the time about every little thing? I believe it is because they must see the world through a very particular lens. Or what about people who are always angry? Every interaction and every situation set them off. They see the world through fire-red lenses that blow everything out of proportion.

Even we, as Christians, can have problematic lenses. I believe that there come times in our lives when we need the Holy Spirit to clean our lenses. We aren’t seeing people how we should see people. We are looking at a certain situation the wrong way. Or maybe we are viewing a circumstance in a bad light. Sometimes it requires the Holy Spirit to clean off our lenses in order to see the world through God’s eyes.

Not only that, but I believe that some of us are in need of an upgrade! Maybe your glasses aren’t that messy but maybe you are looking at your world through the wrong set of lenses. Maybe God has a new prescription for you. Maybe God wants to impart new knowledge, new growth, new maturity on you, but it means that you have to turn in your old pair of glasses for a new pair.

If you’ve noticed yourself being judgmental as of late, if you’ve seen yourself growing negative and cynical, if you realize that your world looks pretty gloomy, maybe it’s time to ask the Holy Spirit to give you a new set of lenses.

See the God-given value in each person you encounter. See God’s plan amid pain. See how He is at work behind the scenes in the midst of your situation. Allow the Spirit to give you new lenses and see.