Luke 10:21 - 24
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
I think of the times when I've seen or heard something that seemed fresh or new to me . . . something that seemed like a brand new insight, a new awakening, or a deeper connection to something I had been longing for.
Often in the aftermath, I realize that the awareness or the awakening had been knocking at my door for a long time, and that I had merely been asleep every other time it had appeared at my door. It was not a matter of the slowness of God's revelation, but a matter of my inability (or unwillingness) to listen or to see.
I have come to see that the world is alive with God, "charged with the grandeur of God," as Hopkins said. But my capacity to see is distorted or stunted or in some way deficient. So time after time, I have to be invited to see and to hear. My lens gets foggy, dusty, and I must clean out the system in order to fully participate in what may already be there.
The desire to see and the longing to hear is not enough. I have to put myself in a position to see and to hear. I have to ask God to help me cultivate in my heart an openness, to be trained in attentiveness, so that when God speaks or shows, I am able to hear or see.
When I am able to hear and see, then I can respond.
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