A little while ago, however, I lost my glasses. I didn’t know I had lost them until I had found them. Not the bronze-colored steel spectacles. I lost a different pair of glasses. I call these glasses heaven’s eyes and they are my most valued treasure. Their presence has brought me into a new reality.

I don’t think anyone is born with heaven’s eyes. Or maybe we all just lose them, sell them, or simply forget them somewhere. Whatever the deal is, I grew up without them. I’m guessing you did, too. This is how I found that there was such a thing as divine eyesight: much like when my parents took me to Walmart Vision Center, God took me to his personal laboratory. He took his time. I talked and talked and talked. I told him all my thoughts. Terrible thoughts, boring thoughts, good thoughts, weird thoughts–all kinds of thoughts. I asked him over and over to fix them. He must have smiled. For as he says in Matthew 6 verse 22, “the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.”

In fact, I was trying for years to fill my body with heavenly light I couldn’t see. For heaven’s light can only be seen through heaven’s eyes.

Let me speak clearly. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you run through a list of what you like and what you don’t? Or when you turn on the news, what do you think? What do you see? Your mind interprets what you see through your perspective and forms thoughts. If your thoughts have been heavy recently, allow me to encourage you: you cannot always change your surroundings immediately but you can change your perspective right now. 

Two months ago, I went through a bit of a burn out. I was exhausted and sick and for the first time in years it felt like my body just stopped. It was simply a physical check. I lay in my bed for a few days. And I thought a lot. In my weakness, I saw God do some radical things through and in me. It wasn’t long after that, however, when I started noticing negative thought patterns. The good old “unworthy”, “not qualified”, bla bla bla came at me. I felt as if God allowed me to see my humanness in a startling way. This is when I “lost my glasses” and I was discouraged.

And then one day he said, “It’s time for you to look through heaven’s eyes.”

It must have been the next day that three people came and shared deep words God had showed them. Since then, it has been absolutely unreal how many people have encouraged and blessed me. They showed me that weakness is not a “problem” to fix or solve. They showed me that what I saw as making me less valuable was quite the opposite. They saw something differently than I did. So instead of taking their words as expectations that only made me feel weaker, I made a decision to change my perspective.

Heaven sees things quite differently than we do. There are no setbacks, no fatal flaws, no bad luck and no fear from up there. Does God get discouraged? Does he freak out? No! He sees the end from the beginning. He sees the destination. If you doubt me just remember that He met Adam with a promise, not a frown. I tell you, he will give his eyes to all who ask. In my journey, I have seen a stark change in how I respond to personal errors or other people’s actions. I simply have to constantly ask the Holy Spirit: what do you see? And then I must decide to think, believe, and act in alignment. It’s a choice every day. Even every minute.

Through Heaven’s eyes, I can truly see reality. And it is exciting! Some may call me naive and vainly optimistic, but if my Creator says that he “has overcome the world”, what can I be afraid of? Through heaven’s eyes, I think I finally understand what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” I see the same value in everyone I come across as I see in myself: the value of Jesus’ life and death. It is shocking and bewildering but so incredibly freeing! This is what I truly believe Jesus restored to humanity.

Glasses. I call them heaven’s eyes. You can call them truth, perspective, sonship, the kingdom of heaven. It doesn’t matter. Just ask yourself  when you face a mountain: what does heaven see?