Low

I feel like I should receive a free pencil and a sticker, a reward for attending three weeks in a row, a certificate stating I am now an official member of the Diane-Writes-on-Saturdays class, because this morning I again showed up to put a reflection in writing.

I thought yesterday I would write about the line in a song that stuck with me this week. Referring to Jesus' eyes, the song says, "How beautiful the tender eyes that choose to forgive and never despise." I felt my own eye twitch as I listened to those words being sung. It was my right eye, and I knew it often looks despicably upon others. I saw Jesus's forgiving, tender eyes (eyes that have tenderly looked upon me) contrasted with my own.

Then this morning as I was sitting quietly with Jesus, hoping for him to calm my mind and minister to my heart, something told me to sit on the floor. I immediately came up with some reasons to not sit on the floor. "But I would have to push this chest out to make space, because I won't fit otherwise," "Brent will come in an see me and wonder what I'm up to (or down to) now," and I forget the third reason to resist the invitation to sit on the ground, but it was there. The excuses came rapidly, practically overlapping one another, and they were all pretty good. But I lowered myself to the floor.

What came to mind as I sat in silence was a small group I used to be part of. Tammi, Diane C., Charlotte and I were the constant regulars. We were the pencil-bearing, certificate-carrying constant members of the group. Once we met in a restaurant and Charlotte, who had planned to not attend, came. She explained why she almost didn't make it. "I am playing racquetball with the ants," she said. "I didn't want you all to have to get down that low with me."

The opposite was true. We were honored to sit low with her and hear her heart. It's the same kind of honor I felt from Jesus this morning, he and I sitting in the dirt (I was actually on a not-very-clean rug but pictured a dusty road). He was glad to sit low with me. He didn't despise me for being down there. He didn't even hate me for that look he sees in my eye toward others--that unforgiving, you-owe-me look.

I'm thinking that as I let myself be looked upon by those eyes, the ones that choose to forgive, my own vision becomes more clear. Can I see others with Jesus's eyes? Yes! Not without his help, and not without letting myself be the recipient of his tender gaze.

Today I'm attending women's retreat for my church. I need to quickly shower to get over there. But I have the opportunity to "sit low" and listen to some ladies as they share their hearts with me one on one. It's a privilege to witness what God is doing in another's life, to partner with Jesus in letting them sit in his gaze.

Just as I "showed up" to my screen this morning, I will show up at the retreat. Not for a pencil or a certificate (maybe a free t-shirt) but to sit low, to lift God high, to listen, and to learn to see with Jesus's eyes.