Look o’er the people about you––

faces so furrowed with care,

lined and hardened by sorrow

sin has placed on them there;

think of the evil they live in,

hopes none and joys so few;

love them, pray for them, win them,

lest they should perish, too.

                        – Ruth Graham, age 13.

(Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)

…

I love these words.

But more importantly, I love the heart behind them.

Give me eyes to see, I pray. For, when we see as we ought––when we see with spiritual eyes––the world and the people in it take on a different hue.

Checking out at the doctor’s office a few months ago, I stood waiting. The receptionists busied themselves with work. One was helping me. One was speaking to a patient on the phone. Another typed intently at her computer.

A glass window stood open on the other side of the station. Looking through to the waiting room, I saw parents interact with their children as they waited to be called back.

It all seemed so ordinary, mundane even. Yet in the midst of it, I was given new eyes to see these people not as people, but as souls. Souls created by God. Souls loved by God. And souls to be won over.

It is with these eyes that we can make a difference in this world.

When we can see others stripped of all that is outward––stripped of their appearance, whether beautiful or not; stripped of their personality, whether palatable or not; and stripped of all their giftings and all their imperfections––we can finally see them as eternal souls aching to be known and to be loved.

This is the purpose of our lives. To see others as God sees them. To love them. And to point them back to the only true source of love––Jesus.

…

How might we point others to Jesus? What’s worked for you? Share in the comments.