The moment was so very brief. We had walked over only to observe the speaker as he talked informally with a small gathering around him, all hoping to glean just a bit more from the inspiring presentation we had just heard. As he spoke to those encircling him, his eyes landed on mine. They were like blazing fire. They were piercing in their intensity and penetrating in their power. The piercing flame of them burned into my own eyes with such intensity that I had to make a conscious effort not to look away from them. A message was coming from them I felt, though I could not discern it; and I knew in that moment those eyes peering into mine did not belong to the man I was watching.

As I tried to discern what the message was, it was those eyes that ruled my mind. They burned with such passion they could only belong to the Savior; and their momentary pause to visit my own eyes was unmistakably sending a message intended just to me. The firmness I saw in them was commanding, reprimanding, and encouraging all in the same package.

So now as I write, still discerning the message, I feel chosen, weak, lifted, unclear, resistant, challenged, and commissioned. And these feelings cause me to revisit the question that I once asked myself, “Why are you here?”

The answer when I first asked it is the same answer now. “I have chosen you,” the answer came. “You make a difference. Give me yourself. Stay in me. Keep going. Don’t give up. Take a stand.” With these answers, I am reminded, corrected and commissioned. Jesus is the Light of the world. If I am to reflect the Savior, my eyes must be a reflection of his. If the eyes of the Lord are like blazing fire, then so must mine be.

“Pay attention,” the eyes were saying. “Look at what you are doing, reassess it, eliminate all that doesn’t fit, intensify all that does. Stand up at home, at work, in the church community, in the ministry you are called to.”

The brief moment those eyes peered into mine led to the reminder that God put us here to be a part of the body of Christ. The part we play may be small, but it is an important one; and it is neither easy, nor very clear. But what is clear, our eyes are to reflect the eyes of the Lord.

And for that our passion for him must be like blazing fire!

 

“You are the light of the world.”