Seeing with New Eyes

What about you? We’ve explored how we can journey with others helping them to entrust themselves to God’s larger purposes, good plans, and eternal perspective. But what about you?

Whether you are reflecting on your past suffering or experiencing current grief, here are a few suggestions and questions. I’ve designed them to help you to move from despair to hope, from darkness to light—seeing life with spiritual eyes instead of eyeballs only.

Don’t try to address every suggestion. Pick a couple that connect with you.

My Weaving Journey

How could you look at your suffering not with rose-colored glasses, but with faith eyes, with Cross-eyes, with 20/20 spiritual vision?

What might God be up to in your suffering?

God’s story doesn’t obliterate your painful story, but it gives it meaning. What meaning could you find as you weave God’s story into yours?

C. S. Lewis famously noted that, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” What is God shouting to you in your pain?

How could you apply Genesis 50:19-20 to your life? “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

How could God be weaving good out of the evil you are experiencing?

Life hurts. Wounds penetrate. Without grace narratives, hopelessness and bitterness flourish. With a grace narrative, how could hope and forgiveness flow and your grace perspective grow?

“In what ways do you think the world, the flesh, and the devil are trying to creep into your thinking (1 John 4:1-6; Galatians 5:13-21; Ephesians 2:1-3; 6:10-18)?”

“What passages have you found helpful in gaining a new perspective on your suffering?”

“How could you relate Paul’s perspective on his suffering in Romans 8:17-28 to your life? How could taking on his perspective alter your perspective?”

“What dead things do you anticipate Christ resurrecting? What will your resurrected life look like it?”