Line of Sight

My eyes are ever toward the LORD. Psalm 25:15a (NKJV)

Morning dawned on the first day of camp. Being a seasoned summer-camper, I pulled on my baseball hat and rushed out of the cabin, forgoing a frigid shower in favor of breakfast. The dining area swarmed with other hungry teenagers. Looking around for somewhere to sit, I noticed one of the older boys staring at something. My eyes followed his gaze. Aha! The prettiest girl in camp moved between tables, serving. I sat down to eat, ready to be entertained.

Someone—another boy—stopped to talk with the girl. I snickered as my target leaned forward, watching them with narrowed eyes. The conversation ended, and he relaxed—until another, unwitting hostile covered her retreat and she disappeared into the kitchen. Frustration contorted the boy’s face. He craned his neck, staring at the swinging door until she reappeared.

That night we gathered around the campfire to sing. One song caught my attention. It promised that when I turn my eyes upon Jesus, “the things of earth will grow strangely dim.”

That boy’s face still comes to mind when I contemplate fixing my eyes on Jesus. People and situations loom, obscuring Him. Sometimes, despite my best efforts to maintain visual contact, God still feels so far away. That is the time to have eyes of faith and guard my relationship with Him as fiercely as a miser hoarding treasure—maneuvering until Christ fills my horizon.

But should He still seem impossible to find, should I despair of feeling His presence again, He offers comfort. His eyes are fixed on me, too.

Lord, give me eyes of faith to see you in every circumstance, and thank you that even when I falter, you never lose sight of me.

© 2013 Katherine A. Fuller