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| Volume 27 Number 10 October 2025 |
Page 14 |
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| Volume 27 Number 10 October 2025 |
Page 14 |
(Matthew 6:22; Proverbs 15:30)
Cliff Holmes
Many years in the past, my grandfather told me that the eyes were the window of the soul. When I asked him to explain, he said, “If you cannot look a man in the eyes when you tell him something, then maybe there is something in your heart and soul you don’t want him to know about you. The same is true if he won’t look you in the eye either.”
Years later, there was a teenage boy in our youth group at church who was letting his hair grow so long one could barely see his eyes. One Sunday, I was speaking with him and I said, “With your hair so long, people cannot see the joy of Christ that I know is in your soul.” He just dropped his head a bit. I hugged him and said, “Just think about it.”
The next week, he had cut his hair short. He stood before me and said, “I understand.” He is a grown man now, and I get to see him when he comes back home for a visit, and though we never talk about the original encounter, I do see the light of Christ in that young man’s soul, and I trust that he sees my love for him as a brother in Christ.
We can read about an awesome eye to eye encounter in God’s Word. Jesus told Peter that he would deny knowing Him three times. While Peter firmly claimed that it would never happen, we know that during the mockery of a trial, and while standing afar off, Peter did as Jesus had said. Luke 22:60–62 records the event. “But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are saying!‘ And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ So Peter went out and wept bitterly” (NKJV). What pain that look from Jesus must have caused Peter!
It would be easy to imagine the conversation transpiring in that moment of eye contact. Jesus could see in the depths of the soul of Peter the bitterness, the anguish, the self-loathing of Peter in his failure. At the same moment, we can hope that Peter could get the message from Jesus, “In spite of all of this, I still love you Peter.”
Let us look each other in the eye and perhaps get a far deeper message from a soul who might just need your soft shoulder or your kind listening ear. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
