How to Keep Our Eyes Open for God

Keep your eyes open.

Maybe we keep a lookout on our neighbors’ house while they are out of town. Perhaps we look for a friend’s lost pet.

Or, we watch for a specific job ad in the paper or online.

Yet, to keep our eyes open sometimes proves difficult. Like when we are sleep deprived. Or, during a scary movie or gruesome video.

And when using eye drops. Anybody else have a hard time with this?

But to keep our spiritual eyes open often proves most difficult of all.

Similar to how we were once spiritually blind to salvation, we open our spiritual eyes to God’s presence and His work in our daily lives.

Similar to how we were once spiritually blind to salvation, we open our spiritual eyes to God's presence and His work in our daily lives. #EyesWideOpen Share on X

Psalm 105 in The Message says this:

Hallelujah! Thank God! Pray to him by name! Tell everyone you meet what he has done! Sing him songs, belt out hymns, translate his wonders into music! Honor his holy name with Hallelujahs, you who seek God. Live a happy life! Keep your eyes open for God, watch for his works; be alert for signs of his presence. Remember the world of wonders he has made, his miracles…(Verses 1-5a, emphasis added).

Maybe we tell others of all the great things God has done for us. And we praise the Lord for every deed or blessing from His hand.

Yet, we miss the second vital part. We fail to look for God’s presence Sunday through Saturday, 24/7. We forget to watch for God to display His wonders in our lives today and every day.

This passage gives us insight into how to keep our spiritual eyes open.

Keep Our Eyes Open for God

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Rejection: 3 Truths to Overcome the Lies

I fought the urge to gasp while reading her text on my phone. The hard-to-swallow message caused a long-buried hurt to suddenly resurface. Rejection. 

Although I have felt the sting of rejection throughout my life, this was a lesson from the school of hard knocks, adult education department.

Rejection happens in every stage of life—to little girls, teen girls, and grown girls. 

Almost like I was an experiment in a lab or a reality show. Will she survive rejection as a woman? Stay tuned for the results.

Perhaps, like me, rejection yanked the rug out from under your fragile heart too many times. 

But whether people introduced us to rejection early in life, later, or both, there are three truths we need to cling to whenever people reject us.

And these truths change our perspective as we compare rejection from people to acceptance from God. We replace lies with truth.

(1.) Rejection is something done to me, not who I am. 

Rejection leaves a hole in our soul wider than the Grand Canyon. Yet, we make the mistake of equating what is done to us as a title to wear. The actions of others should never pen the labels we stick on ourselves.     

Because rejection is an action, not a person. Rejection does not make me a reject. 

On the flip side, acceptance is not only an action, but also a living being—God. So there’s no need for me to have an identity crisis. I take my cue about who I am from the great I AM.

We are patterned in the image of our Creator. Accepted. Valued. Precious. 

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Arrive at a Better Place in Your Relationships

Like traveling to a specific destination, our relationships are an intentional journey. And as with any journey, we need to map out where we hope to go and how we want to arrive somewhere better.

So when it comes to our spouse, children, extended family or friends, it’s not about the popular phrase, I’ve arrived.

Because we never attain perfection in relationships. Instead, the process of becoming stronger in key relationships requires us to evaluate and define how we arrive to desirable places.

Here are a few ideas on how we A.R.R.I.V.E.

A – Advance to Arrive

Advance means to move forward. Each day is a new opportunity to advance our relationships. 

For example, a bank account won’t grow unless we put money into it. In the same way, our relationships cannot grow without focused input. Are we making more deposits than withdrawals in our most important relationships?

Action points: Determine daily acts required to move toward a desired destination in our marriage. Discover what our kids need most from us. Deposit love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion and goodness into our relationships.

Determine daily acts required to move toward a desired destination in our marriage. Discover what our kids need most from us. Deposit love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion and goodness into our #relationships Share on X

R – Regard to Arrive

Google defines regard as consider or think of; attention to or concern.

Philippians 2:3 challenges us, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves” (NASB, emphasis mine). It’s not easy in the flesh. That’s why the Lord instructs us to walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). 

When we regard our spouse in this way, it moves our marriage to a better place. And regarding our friends as more important than ourselves helps us lay down pride and arrive to a better place as a friend.

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Trusting God to Fill Our Blank Spaces

I have known some form of blank most of my life.

Blank spaces nearly succeeded at branding my childhood. They attempted to steal my joy. And blank often overstayed its welcome and threatened to hold me hostage to the emptiness.

So I used to wonder if the God in heaven received memos from people on earth. One memo in particular from a girl wondering why He allowed her life to have blanks. Why He didn’t give her answers. 

Because of blank spaces in my childhood, I grew into a woman who became obsessed for any and every blank to be filled in with something—anything.

Like as a college student it bothered me to leave an unknown answer blank on a test. Even now, whether it’s a class or online training, I frantically search for what goes in the blank. 

And as Christian, I need all the lines filled in on my Bible study book. Seeing blank lines with missing answers (only white space) triggers memories of a life devoid of answers. 

Blank Spaces in All Shapes and Sizes

Blank spaces come in all shapes and sizes and seasons of life bringing loss or lack in areas such as relational, spiritual, mental and emotional.

No respecter of persons, blanks affect us all. Because I don’t know of anyone personally or anyone named in the Bible without blanks for God to fill. 

But…what if when we are surrounded by blank spaces, we trust that God is there too? And when the blanks seem greater in number than filled ones, what if we were confident the Lord was at work behind the scenes to bring about our good?

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