Eyes of Faith

If there is a great gift of faith on this side of eternity, I think it is this: 

Faith changes the way that we see the world. 

Now, listen. I'm talking about real faith - I'm talking about connectedness to God, a deep understanding of your own belovedness, the humbleness of spirit that allows you to listen more than you speak, and an intentionally-developed inclination toward grace. That kind of faith. 

I'm not talking about belief. I'm not talking about the things that we think about God or the things that we think we understand out of the Bible or the things that we think are right or wrong. 

I'm talking about faith that gives us the eyes of God. Through them, it changes the way that we see the world. 

And it's simple, but it's not easy. 

It's being able to hold in juxtaposition something so wonderful as amazing grace with something so profane as a wretch like me. 

It's seeing first and judging later. 

Okay, actually...it's not judging at all. 

Because here's something you may not know if this is not something you're good at yet - seeing first often eliminates your urge to judge. 

I've been in healthcare a long time. And healthcare is a weird place to be sometimes. You've got all of this data in front of you and the challenge is always to remember that there's a human inside that body, that there's a person inside your patient. 

I remember a patient that I wasn't sure what to do with. Actually, nobody was sure what to do with them. The data was weird and not all of it was back yet and the personality, according to the rest of the staff, was hit or miss. There were some things going on that naturally evoke judgment. 

But then one day, I was walking through my unit and something caught my eye. It was the patient - down by the foot of the bed, hunched over. Something seemed wrong, so I stepped in without a second thought and asked what I could do to help. 

The patient grabbed my hand and just started crying. We talked for quite awhile and I did my best to comfort them in what was an incredibly difficult time. When I finally left, I went back to do some charting and clean up some of the other things I was working on. 

About twenty minutes later, it hit me...that was that room. That was that room that I hadn't been sure about. That was that room that nobody knew what to make of. That was that room that seemed to have this thing hanging over it...until it was just an open door with a soul in need and then, suddenly, I had completely failed to notice that it was that room. 

That's what I'm talking about. Living with eyes of faith, seeing the world different, being open to those little nudges from God will take you places you can't imagine. It will put you in situations you couldn't have imagined. It will give you the grace you need for another wretch like you. And your brain won't even process that you're doing it until way later, when you're back in your own space and suddenly realize what's happened. 

And at that point, I no longer had doubts or questions or fears about that patient. None. None of the rest of that mattered. Because there was a holy moment there and God sent me to meet it, and if I hadn't had the eyes to see it and the feet that simply walk in faith and don't pay attention to things like room numbers, I would have missed it. 

That's probably my favorite thing about faith on this side of eternity - all the things it just lets me see that my fallen nature probably would have turned a blind eye to.