17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,18the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,19and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power...
God wants us to open up our eyes - to be people of discernment, who do not walk through life blinded to what the Lord would show us or the needs of people around us. He desires to give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, consistent with His truth. As we know Him better, he will enlighten our understanding, and we will grow in Him. God want to instill a sense of spiritual sensitivity in our hearts and minds.
If we train ourselves in the Scriptures, we can be more sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit and to what God would show us each day. Proverbs 2 talks about this important spiritual training:
1My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you,2So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;3Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding,4If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures;5Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God.
The head groundskeeper of a golf course in Ashland, Ohio made an alert discovery the other day. Jim Willis was picking up trash on the course and said that he "noticed something," according to a report on Fox8 Cleveland.
It was - of all things - a wallet. And, not nearly a new one. There were a driver’s license and college ID, dated from 1990. The assistant manager of the pro shop at Brookside Golf Course, Jim Howell, said:
“I said this is so cool that we found this. I think I’m going to put a note on my Facebook page, and that we found it and that it is about 20 years old. A friend of mine on Facebook came back and said ‘I think I know the guy you are talking about.’”
The wallet's owner, Kevin Gibson, said that, “A friend that I had went to school with saw the post, reached me through Facebook and told me that they had found a wallet with my name on some of the stuff inside of it."
The wallet's owner, Kevin Gibson, said that, “A friend that I had went to school with saw the post, reached me through Facebook and told me that they had found a wallet with my name on some of the stuff inside of it."
It was 1994 when then-24-year-old Kevin Gibson of Ashland, who was fresh out of the military and was enrolled at Ashland University, lost his wallet. He said, “I remember riding in a golf cart through the golf course. After that, it was when I realized that I didn’t have my wallet anymore. I remember thinking ‘oh no, not again.’ It was like the second or third time in my life that I had lost my wallet.”
Kevin Gibson was found 6 hours after the original Facebook post. The story does not say how much cash may or may not have been in it.
I think this discovery of something that had been hidden for some 20 years can provide some spiritual encouragement for us. For one thing, it illustrates the importance of keeping your eyes open. Oddly enough, scores of golfers had walked in the vicinity of that spot for two decades. But, on that day recently, the groundskeeper noticed something, and it turned out to be a rather sentimental find. Spiritually speaking, we can acknowledge that God may have something to show you today, but we may miss it if we're not in tune with him.
I think this discovery of something that had been hidden for some 20 years can provide some spiritual encouragement for us. For one thing, it illustrates the importance of keeping your eyes open. Oddly enough, scores of golfers had walked in the vicinity of that spot for two decades. But, on that day recently, the groundskeeper noticed something, and it turned out to be a rather sentimental find. Spiritually speaking, we can acknowledge that God may have something to show you today, but we may miss it if we're not in tune with him.
I thought about a book title from Andy Andrews, The Noticer. His website contains this quote, "Many people ignore ‘small stuff,’ claiming to have an eye on the bigger picture, never understanding that the bigger picture is composed entirely of small stuff." I think that we can train ourselves to slow down and sensitively look around us, carefully - to become more of a noticer. We can have our eyes completely on ourselves or on our daily agendas or activities and lose our perspective - a good dose of spiritual sensitivity can be beneficial to us.
Not only can our eyes be open and perhaps trained to be more cognizant of the world around us, but I do believe that God is calling us to be diligent searchers for His truth. The Bible speaks of seeking His Word like silver - carefully mining the Scriptures to find what He has to teach us. By making a devoted effort to learn what God has to teach us in His Word, we can grow and continue to train ourselves to be more connected to His Spirit.
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