The Open Eye

“Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.’”, — Psa.m cxix. 18.

I REMEMBER a word which was spoken to me by a very studious naturalist, a great lover of the things which are hidden in the quieter ways of God, ‘“‘ The wonders of one furrow.” And I remember a book which was given to me in my boyhood, which bore the title, “‘ The wonders of a village. pond.” Both these phrases associate wonders with commonplaces, The magic poetry is found in seemingly dull prose. But everybody does not see the wonders, everybody does not discern the magic lines, and this for the simple reason that they will not look for them. They do not bring an open eye, nor are they ready to give the needful pains. And so the secret treasures are never found.

And it is even so with the wondrous treasures of God’s law. It is a startling association, this of treasures with law. Who links together dry legalities and marvellous wealth? Who thinks of hidden springs in legal wastes? Who expects to find poetry in legal phraseology? And yet if we gaze deep into law, if, say, we pass through the dry legalisms of Magna Charta into its inner secrets we shall find the priceless treasure of a nation’s freedom. ‘There is a wondrous thing in that law. And I begin to see what one Psalmist meant who had deeply meditated on the law of God, and who returned from his meditation as one having found great spoil. He had found springs in what to others was only dry-as-dust. He had heard music in the voice of a commandment; for did he not come back singing, “Thy statutes have become my song!”’

But if we would find these wonders in God’s law, and if we would find still greater wonders in God’s grace, there is imperative need of the open eye. There are eyes which are closed in sleep; they are in wonderful places, but they see nothing. There are eyes which are otherwise engaged; they are absorbed in other things. They can be in Nature’s loveliest lanes, and the lanes are no more than asphalt pavements. And so it is with the wonders of God’s spiritual ministries. We can be blind on their side, and this because the energies of vision are entirely distracted by other and meaner interests. But there is one other explanation of spiritual blindness, the deepest and most common of all. Our eyes can be held in sin, and because of sin we see nothing of the daily moving wonders of God’s marvellous love and grace.

And so when God opens our eyes He removes the radical cause of our blindness. The faculty of vision is directly related to spiritual condition, and therefore its redemption begins in the soul. The first necessity of clarity is purity. ‘‘ Blessed are the pure, for they shall see.’’ Our seeing begins in God’s cleansing. ‘‘If I wash thee not thou hast no part with Me; ye cannot even see the Kingdom of God.’ And who knows just what deep sinful thing there is in the life which is destroying our spiritual vision? It may be something of which we never dream. Our great oculists often trace defective sight to remote and seemingly incredible causes, and who knows just what hidden thing is damaging the optic nerve of the soul? Well, God knows, and His deliverance from blindness means the removal of every evil thing. ‘“Lord, that I might receive my sight!’ And with the sight we shall behold the wonders.