Grace Eyes.

I have a confession to make. I am a recovering hot head. It’s true. I come from a long line of screaming Scotts. My mother was a screamer, ranter, rager. My grandmother, well, I’ve heard stories about her bursts of anger that would raise the hairs on your neck and make you want to go hug your children!

When I was a teenager and my hair didn’t do what I wanted it to do… mmm, girl! I’ve broken a few hairbrushes from flinging them across the room in anger, a time or two. There could have been a hairbrush grave yard outside my bathroom window.

When the car in front of me wasn’t going as fast as I’d like to go, thank you very much, I’d drive like a maniac, risking life and limb to get around them… even if it meant driving 50 MPH in a 30 zone, in a turn lane, racing said slow car. Yeah, that happened. (Hanging head in shame.)

I’m not proud of this confession, but I can give God all the praise and glory for breaking the bloodline and delivering me from those anger issues… for the most part.

There is at least one area that I still struggle with anger. Probably more than that, but that's a discussion for another day. ;) No, I no longer feel the need to throw hairbrushes or break things. Now I get frustrated and say unkind and unloving things. That area is sin. Sin makes me angry. (LOL... insert "Be angry and sin not" right here!)

Now let me get more specific. I completely understand why a lost person sins. Their souls haven't been quickened. They have no divine influence of the Holy Spirit. A lost person, acting like a lost person, isn't what gets to me... so much. It's my saved sisters and brothers that go around acting like lost souls. Now that gets my goat. (For all of you that might not be from the south, that means, that just gripes me to no end.)

For some reason, God thought it a great idea to put a strong sense of justice into my DNA and when I see someone hurting another person because of selfishness, or allowing pride to ruin relationships, or lies hurting the cause of Christ… oh, that burns me up!!

I have a friend that God had just BLESSED with a heart for sinful Christians. I don’t know how she does it, but she can counsel someone who is struggling in sin and be very poignant as she lays out the truth of what God’s word says about sin, but still be very loving all at the same time. It’s a true gift of wisdom annndddd…. I do NOT HAVE IT!! I fear that if I were the one having the conversations she’s had with these sin sick and confused children of God, I would just blow it with a, “Well, that’s just stupid! Why would you do that? Don’t you know Jesus died so you wouldn’t have to live in bondage? Why would you do that?!”

Bwah, bwah, bwaaaaaaaah.

Recently, though, God been whispering a phrase into my ear. Grace eyes. He says, “Christy, you need to start seeing people through grace eyes.”

Grace eyes: Eyes that see people through God’s grace, who sees the sin and can hate the sin, but love the sinner.

In our ladies Bible study at church, we’ve been going through Pricilla Shirer’s The Armor of God. Oh, wow! What a journey the Lord has been taking me on. The very first week, Pricilla gave us a wonderful illustration about seeing past the sinner and seeing the source of the sin. She tells about when she took her children to a carnival. There was a game booth similar to Whack a Mole, but instead of electronic moles popping up randomly, it was hand puppets. They had constructed a table with holes in the top for the puppets to pop out of. Around the bottom was a curtain to conceal several adults who were the puppeteers. A little boy who stood behind her and her boys in line, just couldn’t handle the injustice of those puppets continually popping up even when they had been firmly and soundly whacked! She goes on to tell how he runs up to the table and yanks off the curtain, revealing the people holding their puppets. Her conclusion was this. The puppets are like the problems in our life. Problem people, sickness, financial strain, just to name a few. We use all of our energy fighting and whacking at those “moles”, forgetting that they are merely the puppets. Our real enemy is the puppet master himself, Satan. He is the one we should be affixing our targets on.

The Lord has used that story over and over again in my life. Whether I’m sharing it with another person, or He’s using it to remind me that through grace eyes, we remember that it’s not the sinner we should be getting frustrated with, it’s the creator of the sin. The great deceiver. No one is above sin. It could happen to me any day and at any time, “were it not for grace.”

I’m still on this journey. The Lord has set a new course. This course is going around “Grace Mountain”, but for now, I’m still on the valley’s floor, praying for directions and looking for the path upward. I will follow His lead. Slowly, and maybe dragging my feet, but I do look forward to God clearing away another dust bunny from my heart and giving me new eyes to see the hurting.

There’s an old, OLD Amy Grant song that says…

“She’s got her Father’s eyes.

Eyes that find the good in things, when good is not around.

Eyes that find the source of help, when help just can’t be found.

Eyes full of compassion, seeing every pain.

Knowing what you’re going through and feeling it the same.

Just like her Father’s eyes.

Oh how I long to have my Father’s beautiful eyes of grace.

#Grace #Sin