Open The Eyes Of My Heart

Master, I want to see.

Soken Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher and theologian

made the distinction between hindsight, foresight and insight.

Hindsight is to gain understanding looking back at things.

And he would maintain that in some ways,

all of our life will only make sense on the day of our resurrection

because we will look back at our life

and it will all make sense in hindsight, making sense of the past.

Then there is foresight where we look into the future,

we can see how things will play out.

We anticipate how it is going to be.

This is where he suggests that we have to enter into faith,

and trust that things will turn out fine.

But the one that has the most power is that of insight.

Because whne we are in the present moment,

the very moment of something we can see

we can understand what is going on in a deeper way.

That is the most powerful in so many ways.

This is where Bartimaeus, the blind man has already gotten to

because he sees Jesus and knows him to be the Messiah.

He says, “Jesus, son of David have pity on me.”

In other words, heal me.

He calls out, calling him by name as the messiah.

The challenge is today

we hear of Bartimaeus wanting to have physical sight.

Of course, that mirrors for us the want to have spiritual sight.

Because for us, we do not struggle with physical blindness,

although we might be getting a little older

and not seen as well as we used to,

but we are talking about a deeper sense of sight.

But he has spiritual insight.

What are we blind to?

We often suffer from a number of blindness in all three areas.

We are often blind as to how God has worked in our lives.

This is a real blindness of hindsight.

And the only way to cure this is through prayer and reflection.

It is only through opening ourselves to God’s sight

where we will look and we will see,

“Ah, yeah, God’s hand was there in the midst of the struggle of my life

and I did not see it. But now I do.”

Then in foresight, unless we embrace our faith

and the faith of a intellectual ascent to God,

recognizing that God is always beyond us.

We cannot know the future completely or ever will,

and not just in an intellectual ascent,

but also an emotional desire to connect with God.

That is what we have been talking about this weekend

at our prayer and retreat.

We are called to trust that no matter what happens,

that God will be present to me.

That I will see Jesus in all of what will happen to me.

But the greatest traction we can get is in insight.

Because if we can sit in prayer and reflection,

then we can see at a deeper level we can see with insight,

we can see with eyes of faith and here

we can make or allow the greatest change

and conversion to happen in our lives.

It is where God will hold us

and then show us what is happening now,

gently guiding us to accept what is happening now,

whether that be good or whether it be not so good for us,

that God is with us.

Now see that is what we have been trying to do this weekend,

these last two days in prayer at our retreat to see with insight.

But to do that, we have to have a little hindsight

to see where God operated in our life?

We have to be prepared to look into the future

as God is going to be with me, foresight in the future.

But right now I want to experience it now.

In the end, we want to do and say what Bartimeas says,

“Lord, I want to see, open my eyes,

Lord, open my eyes to where you have been in the past in my life

and open my eyes so that I can see you

in the future going forward in hope.

But mostly open my eyes so that I can see you now;

that you are here with me,

open the eyes of my heart.

Master, I want to see.