Category Archives: Thankfulness

Keeping an Eye

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All of us treasure our eyesight. In reading through scriptural references to the eyes, we’re told we can gain much by what we allow ourselves to look at and can get into trouble the same way.

One biblical reference to an eye, though, has always puzzled me: “Keep me as the apple of your eye.” (Psalm 17:8) I know being the apple of someone’s eye means you’re very special to them, possibly more important than anyone else. It’s a position of loving favor. But what’s the logic of an apple being put together with an eye?

In the psalm above, David is talking to God, confident he is the apple of his eye. And he’s right, since God has already told him so. In Zechariah 2:8 God warns that anyone who hurts his people hurts the “apple of his eye” and will have to pay serious consequences.

Since the Bible contains the oldest references to the apple-eye phrase, I decided to research its meaning: (1) the ancients thought the eye’s pupil was a sphere much like a round fruit, calling it the apple of the eye; (2) the original Hebrew for this idiom was translated “little man of the eye.” The Latin word pupilla, which is much like the word pupil, means “little doll.”

Apple of his eye

So here’s the connection. When we stand face-to-face with someone, looking at each other closely eye-to-eye, we each see our own reflection in the pupils of the other. And so the phrase “apple of my eye” refers to a very close, one-on-one relationship with someone.

Only one person at a time can be close enough to see their image in another’s pupil. It doesn’t work with two. Thus there’s only one person who can be the apple of another’s eye. So how did this work with David and God? Or for that matter, with God and us?

Because the Almighty is who he is, superior to us in countless ways, he can (miraculously) be eye-to-eye with all of us at the same time while still remaining one-on-One. He’s a personal God, able to be all things to all people simultaneously. I can be the apple of his eye at the same time you are. It’s one of those divine phenomenons of 100% here and also 100% there.

God the Father has told us no one can look directly at him and live. But he’s given us the apple-eye expression as a way to understand how important each of us is to him, hoping we’ll feel the same in return.

In a related Scripture, God tells us he’s willing to guide us with his eye (Psalm 32:8). As we’re gazing at him, he passes along his all-wise guidance, which is then easy to receive when we’re that closely focused on him.

So no matter what happens to my earthly eyesight, I don’t want anything to damage my apple-eye vision.

“[God] shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye.” (Deuteronomy 32:10)

Maximizing Minimums

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In yesterday’s blog we talked about taking advantage of teachable moments that pop up in everyday life, things like being given too much change at a store or not being charged for everything we bought. Rather than look at these moments as irritating inconveniences, wisdom tells us to view them as golden opportunities.

Mary and I, now in our late sixties, look back at our active mothering years and see lots of things we’d do differently if we could begin again. One of them would be to maximize the minimums, in other words, use small moments to teach big concepts.

This would include the obvious, like the extra change situation, but also less apparent chances to teach youngsters. Mary said, “One thing I wish is that I’d involved my kids more in giving to others.”

I reminded her she’d done a great deal, taking meals to people in crisis, driving Meals on Wheels for a hospital, tutoring children after school. She stopped me, though, and said, “But I didn’t usually let my kids help me. It was much easier to get it done without them.” We agreed these were still good deeds, but both of us had forfeited teachable moments.

As we talked, though, we did come up with two times when we did teach our young children through everyday circumstances:

Hot chocolate

  1. Mary and her carload of children drove the same route to school for years, always passing an elderly crossing guard who daily helped young children cross the street (to a different school than Mary’s children attended). She remarked to her kids about this man’s faithfulness to his task, rain or shine, and wondered how they might show admiration for this stranger. Her children decided, during a very cold winter, to bring a thermos of hot chocolate to him and a thank you for a job well done. Whether or not the old man appreciated it, Mary’s children learned to consider the effort of someone else and express thanks for it.

Leopard-lined gloves2. In driving my own carpool daily (to a different school), the children and I always passed an older woman bowed over with extreme osteoporosis. Gripping a walker, she inched along a particular stretch of sidewalk next to a middle-aged man, no doubt her son, painfully exercising at the same time every day. We looked for her as we came down the street, and my children wondered what we might do to encourage her. They decided to buy her a pair of warm winter gloves and deliver them with an original poem of admiration. On the day we stopped our van for them to jump out and approach her, I knew we’d accomplished something worthwhile in my kids.

Surely countless other examples could serve as ways to maximize teachable moments for children, whether our own or someone else’s. Jesus instructed us to be of practical help to others, not just for their benefit but for ours, too. He knew that would make everybody happy.

“How joyful are those who fear the Lord…. They share freely and give generously to those in need.” (Psalm 112:1,9)

Feeling Inadequate

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IRS formsThere’s nothing like a 1040 form to make a non-mathematical person like me feel dim-witted, especially on a day when I had already been through one other brainless episode.

The first began innocently when Klaus dropped by to spend a couple of hours. I asked if he could teach me how to email a pdf document to someone, and he said, “Sure. No problem.”

An hour later, I was still practicing, working on my sixth try without success. After each failure (accompanied by groans of defeat) Klaus would patiently say, “Let’s try once more. You’ll get it this time.”

In the end I had to write down every step in order: “Look on the left of the screen; click on the 4th option down; a purple box will appear; scroll down to…” etc.

When Klaus would say, “Just fool around with it a little and try several things,” I felt like a hitchhiker being pushed out of a car in the Sahara Desert. I know I’ll get it someday, maybe even the next time I try, but without Klaus in the house, results are bound to be mixed.

H & R Block

Later the same day I was sitting with a tax expert at her H & R Block computer, thinking the only thing I’d be required to do was watch her work. How was I to know she was going to ask so many complicated questions?

It doesn’t take much for some of us to feel incompetent. That goes for spiritual things, too. Maybe especially for those.

Sometimes when studying the Bible I feel thick-in-the-head, unsure of what God is trying to say to me. But there’s more to it than just not understanding what a passage says. It also can be intimidating to open Scripture with the goal of trying to get “inside” the logic of God. That can feel really awkward or uncomfortable.

But what might his perspective be as we’re reading and studying… a trying? I’m just guessing, but I’d say he’s probably smiling, appreciating our efforts, even those that end with only partial understanding. Thankfully, he’s always been a Person who looks at our intentions rather than the results. (1 Samuel 16:7)

And intelligence probably has very little to do with it. Even feeling brainless is ok. After all, if a child can understand much of what the Bible says, nothing should stop the rest of us from trying, too, even those of us who feel dim-witted in front of a 1040 form.

“The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.” (Psalm 14:2)