Psalm 13 – Enlightened Eyes
By Bunni Pounds
*This blog is part of our weekly, virtual Bible Study through the book of Psalms. For information on how to participate, please visit this page.
How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”;
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:1-6)
Today, since Psalm 13 is only six verses I want us to see it all in context. This is such a powerful song of the salvation of God.
The words that instantly jumped out at me were “enlighten my eyes”. I just taught the Word last Sunday at a church where like every time I share about my salvation experience at the age of 13, I cry. I tell how I saw my wickedness and saw Jesus’ love turned toward me. I always tear up every time I tell that story of how Jesus found me. It was my moment where I feel madly in love with God.
Last night, I was also listening to a podcast by my friend Corey Russell and another man Billy Humphrey talking about Revelation 1– and the burning eyes of Jesus that John saw even as His body shone like the sun in its strength. In that moment, those eyes captured me again for the thousandth time. It never gets old after 33 years of salvation.
Our salvation is when our eyes were enlightened and open. It is a miracle if we believe this incredible story. In John 17:6 Jesus said, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”
Jesus manifests His name to us. We didn’t make it happen! We do not just choose God involuntarily.
We do, in a sense, choose God AFTER we hear the gospel – because God wants voluntary lovers, not slaves; but God Himself must send someone to share the gospel with us and He must open our eyes and our ears to utterly understand His love, His mercy, and how great His salvation is. We can not do that on our own.
That is why the Psalmist says here, “My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.” Joy springs up in His soul and He is rejoicing, singing, and knowing that His salvation is a miracle. He is so thankful that God revealed Himself to him in the middle of his enemies – where he felt lost and alone.
Ultimately, He understood and was prophesying the final destruction of the last enemies – the devil and death.
Soon into the future – Jesus would say as He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead – “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die...” John 11:25-26a
And the Apostle Paul when speaking of eternal death would say – “For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” (1 Corinthians 15:25-27a)
When we speak about our salvation – we are speaking about the destruction of sin and death in our lives – through Jesus. He frees us from patterns of sin, and He delivers us from eternal death. This HOPE is what makes us rejoice and sing to the Lord.
The apostolic prayer – Ephesians 1:18 that I pray all the time over my life goes like this
“the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
When the eyes of our understanding are enlightened – we see hope, we see His calling on our lives, and we see His glory.
This is probably my greatest desire every day.
If I don’t see Jesus operating in my life with true eyes of understanding what He is doing in my life – I am miserable. I must see how He is moving, operating, and planning my life. He makes sense of the chaos, the suffering, and the slowness of plans being revealed. In this journey, it no longer becomes about the plans or the event milestones, but about walking with Him in the journey. There is a big difference in our perspective there – and that is what leads to great contentment.
Now let’s spend a few minutes looking into His eyes out of Revelation 1. John spent over three years with Jesus when He was walking and talking with them, but this moment of the revealing was probably His greatest moment of seeing Jesus EVER.
John was on the island Patmos on the Lord’s Day and he heard a voice behind him. He turns to see the voice and is confronted by “the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.” (Revelation 1:13-16)
Read this again.
Can you imagine seeing Jesus like this?
Do you see His eyes?
John fell at His feet like he was dead. He was still. Almost lifeless. Everything stopped. Whatever John was doing before that moment did not matter anymore.
Can you imagine Jesus’ countenance shining like the sun in its fullest strength and then out of that brightness – His eyes shining even brighter like a flame of fire?
Those are some bright eyes. Wow!
As I read Psalm 13 and this prayer of David – “Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes” – instantly the cry of my heart was to see Jesus’ eyes again. For my eyes to be open and enlighten to see His eyes clearly.
I do not want to see Jesus as the world sees Him in pop culture, in lifeless church services, or pictures in art museums – I want to REALLY see Him.
I want to see His eyes of love for me that drive me to my knees. I want to see the fire of His calling on my life that causes me to give up everything to follow Him. I want to see the fire of transformation and purity and for my desire to turn to be just like Him. I want to see this Son of Man and Son of God that causes my pride and self-importance to fall away – where all I see is Him in me and His light coming out of me.
It is a miracle that I believe in Him.
My prayer today is that you see those eyes turned toward you and that they change you forever. Even right now.
God – enlighten our eyes – to see Your burning eyes of fire. We never want to be the same again.
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