Looking the Right Direction

February 11

(Acts 3:4-5 NIV) "Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" {5} So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them."

(Matthew 6:22-23 NIV) "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. {23} But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"

(Psalms 121:1-2 NIV) "I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? {2} My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

At an early age, infants learn to look into our eyes for information and intimacy. Something spiritual happens when we look people in the eye. So it was with the beggar at the gate. Conditioned by years of shame, he kept his head down and didn’t look up. It was safer for his soul not to make eye contact. His posture portrayed weakness, defeat, and humiliation. But Peter demanded eye contact, because he knew that God wanted to heal more than just this man’s body. Peter and John could have given him a small coin and felt good for helping the poor like many Christians do today. But they wanted to give him more than that. They wanted to give him his life back. They wanted God to heal his soul. So the man looked up and his life was never the same… because when he looked into their eyes, he was looking into the eyes of Christ. The first step to healing is looking up. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day