Lately, my quiet time ritual has been the same.
I pour a cup of coffee. I move into my office. I light a candle and wrap myself in a blanket on the couch. I open my Bible and my notebook, and I say the same prayer:
“God, please show me something I’ve never noticed before.”
There’s a difference between seeing and noticing. You may have seen a verse in the Bible many times, but have you noticed it? Seeing can be very passive—it can be done without much effort– but noticing requires mindfulness and a deeper kind of presence. Noticing requires you to be attentive, looking close enough to notice the details that many others will skip over or overlook.
I’d say this prayer has been one of the best prayers I’ve ever prayed. It’s shown me so many new layers and character traits of God. It has helped me understand the Bible better but it has also grown this thick and sprawling intimacy with the Lord that I’ve never felt before.
Just the other day, I prayed the prayer as I was reading Hebrews 12, and I noticed a line I’ve read countless times before:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (KJV)
But as I dug deeper into this verse—looking up the words in their original language and following cross-references—I caught a glimmer of something I’d never noticed before; an answer to my near-constant prayer.
The phrase “looking unto” is a Greek verb—aphorao. It’d be easy to assume the phrase means exactly what it sounds like “looking at Jesus.” But wait. Look more closely. That verb in Greek is not the phrase one might use to describe taking a picture or saying, “Look at me.” That’s not what the author is prompting us with here.
In fact, we don’t have a phrase like this in the English language. The closest we might get to it is the word “fix, ” meaning “to fix your eyes onto something.”
But this is something different. Something more tender and intimate.
Let’s look at the literal definition from the Blue Letter Bible:
“To turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something.”
This phrase is not about simply looking to or at Jesus. It encapsulates what it means to actively remove one’s eyes from other things and fix them back on Jesus.
Off of the status.
Off of the anxiety.
Off of the striving.
Off of the future.
Off of the numbers.
Off of the distractions.
I can’t help but smile over this detail. It’s almost like God knew that we’d drift. That we’d look away. We’d be distracted by other things—other gods—other golden-glinted spectacles. And so he bottled up our distractedness—our propensity to look in all the wrong places for him– into a phrase that gently tells the hearer,
“Hey. I know there are other things, and I know you’re tempted to keep your eyes on them because it makes you feel like you have more control, but the peace won’t come with your eyes in that direction.
Turn your eyes away from those other things and fix them back onto me. Keep looking at me.
I’m the way.
I’m the ‘yes’ when the answer should be ‘no.’
I’m the good shepherd.
I’m the open door.
I’m the healer with the mud on his fingertips.”
Within our own muddy circumstances, it’s easy to get distracted. It’s easy to want to focus on anything but the problem. But here’s an invitation to look at God—to keep our gaze on him, even if it takes some practice, because the view is infinitely better within the mud pit, or the storm, or wherever you’re standing in this moment.
We are invited:
When it feels too heavy, we can draw our focus back to him.
When it feels impossible, we can fix our eyes back on him.
When we don’t know the next step, we can continually turn our gaze back towards him.
Yes, you and I get distracted, but God has never taken his eyes off of us. Psalm 121:3-8 confirms this truth:
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Even when you don’t feel his presence, God wants to be with you at every step and stand with you in every fire. His presence is constant and overwhelming—it goes before you, follows behind you, and covers you like an oversized sweater.
Peace comes from looking in His direction, from listening for that sweet whisper of the spirit that gently nudges you and says,
“Take your eyes off that thing you’re so worried about and fix them back onto me. I don’t care if you have to do this one, ten, or 52 times today. I welcome all the shifts because I welcome you. And I love you. I’ve given my life for you to be able to run from that place of love.”
Scripture References
