Seeing Through God’s Eyes

“They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (2 Samuel 1:12).

How would you respond if you heard something bad happened to someone who had been trying to cut your head off for several years? King Saul had been seeking to kill David for many years before Saul was thrust into battle against the Amalekites. In this final battle, the sword kills Saul. When the news arrives to David, instead of rejoicing that his enemy is no longer a problem for him, he responds in a totally different manner. He mourns. Imagine that, he mourns for the one who sought to kill him.

This is a sign of one who can look past an individual who is the source of pain and consider how God views them. God looks upon that individual and sees their needs and knows why they respond the way they do. When we begin to see people like God does, we’ll no longer look at them as an enemy, but as a soul in need of grace. This is how Jesus could give of His life for us. He saw our great need, not what we did to Him. When someone wrongs you, do you seek to retaliate, or do you pray to understand the need behind their actions? I had a person in my own life for several years who was a source of constant pain and retaliation towards me. There was nothing I could do to change it. God allowed me to go beyond their actions to understand what was the source of their need. When I gained that understanding, God gave me a picture of this person inside a prison cell and that they were in bondage. This bondage made them respond to life in this way. I was able to pray from them and genuinely love them in spite of the fact that they persecuted me. This is the kind of love Jesus wants us to have when He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who spitefully use us.

I believe God does a special work of grace in those who go beyond the realm of normal response to persecution. He brings us to a level of grace we never thought possible. Francis Frangipane describes what happens when we tap into this grace when describing how God worked in Joseph’s life: “God made him fruitful in the very things that afflicted him. In the land of your affliction, in your battle, is the place where God will make you fruitful. Consider, even now, the area of greatest affliction in your life. In that area, God will make you fruitful in such a way that your heart will be fully satisfied, and God’s heart fully glorified. God has not promised to keep us from valleys and sufferings, but to make us fruitful in them.” Francis Frangipane, Place of Immunity, Arrow Publications, p. 93