The Eyes of a Child

My daughter, who is all of seven months old, is enamoured by the wonder of everything (or should I say every thing?). She watches the leaves falling from the trees as if they were fairies floating down from the sky; when she plays peek-a-boo, it’s as if she really believes that she has disappeared into an unseen world; when she sits in the sink for a bath, she puts her hand through the running water as if it was a flowing river of gold. All that has become rote and routine to me is bursting with grandeur and glory to her. 

And her wide-open, wide-awake eyes are opening and awakening something in me: a healing, wonder-full worship of God. 

The psalmist seemed to see the world through such child-like eyes -- and the result was an overflow of awe-full worship. He looked out at the stars in the sky and saw a chorus of singers, praising the Lord (Psalm 19:1-4); he looked at his neighbors (and at himself) and saw the masterpiece work of the world’s greatest Sculptor (Psalm 139:13-18, Ephesians 2:10); he looked at the Law of the Lord (that thing so often full of boredom to us) and saw a tree full of honey, a chest spilling over with silver and gold (Psalm 119). 

The Gift of Such Sight

But many of us have lost the gift of such sight. We see most of the world as merely mechanical: we don’t even think to turn our eyes heavenward; we find ourselves walking past throngs of immortals (for every person will live forever) without so much as breaking our stride; we wash our hands in the sink and shake off the water as if we were flicking away a pest. And when the world appears to us as little more than a numb and unfeeling machine, our lives become just as numb and unfeeling -- anemic and withered. 

But we, most if not all of us, know what we’ve lost. We’re haunted by dreams of what we’ve once seen in a far-away Eden. We hunger for the wonder and grandeur and awe of a pure and innocent childhood. And so we hop onto planes (the magic of that mere fact itself!) and fly far away to let the Grand Canyon steal and hide our breath; or we travel to cities where the skyscraper skylines truly do scrape the top of the sky as they beckon our eyes to the stars; but then, the bliss of the moment that felt so solid and real vanishes like smoke, and we wipe away the surprising tears that sprang to our eyes in one unfathomable instant. 

Back to the real world, the dull and deadening one.

I Want to See Again

I’m sure that many of us would give almost anything to have the eyes of a child again, to see the world as if for the first time, to truly believe that the world is full of magic and goblins and elves. Of course, there are many of us who never had such a childhood to begin with -- perhaps the world has always been dark and mechanical and void of joy. 

But in the end, I have no doubt that all of us feel as that blind beggar did on the road to Jericho, two thousand years ago -- the one who, hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was walking by, cried out like a child, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy… I want to see again” (Luke 18:35-43). Will the Son of David grant him -- grant us -- the gift of eyes that see again?

I believe that he can, and that he will -- but what if he does it in the most unexpected and perhaps most surprising of ways? 

What if he gives us the eyes of a child again?

Exult in Monotony

The philosopher and author G.K. Chesterton writes on this very topic most beautifully. My daughter, as he would say it, is strong (and innocent) enough to exult in monotony: she kicks her legs over and over and over again from excess of life, not boredom with life; she laughs at the same tricks over and over and over again because it’s still astonishing to her that something can happen over and over and over again. She sees repetition not as a lifeless routine, but as a theatrical encore. 

We, on the other hand, are weaker than children. We do not have the strength to rejoice in the monotonous. When our children witness a magic trick and say to us, “Do it again!” a dozen times, we feel like keeling over -- meanwhile they continue to laugh and cover their faces in awe. We are tempted to make ourselves feel better about this by saying that children are unrealistic and don’t yet understand the world -- which, in a certain (and very boring sense) is true, if our only understanding of what is realistic has to do with death and taxes. But what if it is we, the pitiful grownups, who are truly unrealistic? What if it is we who don’t yet fully understand the world? Or to paraphrase what Chesteron once said, what if we “have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we”? 

Our Father certainly does seem to rejoice in monotony. Just look around: it’s like he was a child who, having created the first man and the first woman, happily exclaimed, “Oh, do it again!” He seems to look at the daisies of the field as a young boy, who in uncontainable gladness proclaims, “Do it again!” Every morning, he might as well be looking at the eastern sky and calling out to the sun like it was all the most elaborate magic trick, “Do it again, do it again!” The old, rote world is never old or rote to children; perhaps it is never old or rote to God either. Perhaps it is we who have sinned and grown old. Indeed, if we are to take God’s word for it, it is we who have sinned and grown old and thrown away our joy (Romans 3:9-18). What are we to do?

There is a simple answer, though it is not an easy one. 

The beginning of recovering our sight, of recovering our joy and wonder and worship, is to simply ask God to forgive us for the sins which have so deadened our hearts and so blurred our vision. The beginning of seeing the world with child-like eyes again, is to ask for the child-like faith without which no one will enter the kingdom (Luke 18:17). 

Wondrously enough, God has said, “Yes. I will forgive you. I will take your dead, dull heart of stone and give you a vibrant, thumping heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26); I will put my living hands upon your blind eyes, and I will give you the precious gift of sight.”

That is, of course, the good news for all the world: God has said yes to such requests -- and he has uttered that resounding “yes” through Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). 

It may even come to pass that, in spite of our blindness and weakness, God may give us the strength to exult in monotony; he may give us the eyes of a child again.