Lens of Love

 

Have you ever looked at a professional photographer’s pictures?  They are amazing!  The colors are so crisp, the lighting so perfect.  It just looks so good, like it could jump off the page at you.  Now compare that to the pictures you take with your smart phone.  Not quite so impressive.  The light is probably a little harsh or dark.  It might be a little blurry.  It’s a decent picture, but not as good as the professional one.  Now think about a picture taken with your very first camera.  My very first camera was a long, thin thing that had film in it and printed the picture out of the camera as soon as you took it.  Seemingly pretty awesome, until you take into account that the pictures it took were about 1 inch by 2 inches!  You could barely tell who anyone in the picture was!  What makes the difference between the pictures?  What makes the difference between the clear, crisp professional pictures and the mini, blurry pictures taken with my first camera?

It’s the lens.

The right lens makes all the difference.  The lens determines the amount of light that is let in.  Without the proper lens, your picture will be dark and you won’t be able to see it clearly.  If you have smudges on the lens; your picture will be blurry.  Not because there’s something wrong with the subject of the picture, but because there’s something wrong with the lens.  The lens makes all the difference in a photo.  The question I ask myself is this.

What kind of lens am I looking at people through?

I am often very critical of myself.  I judge myself very harshly, making sure that I’m not going to mess things up.  This stems from insecurities that I have dealt with since I was a child.  I’ve always felt that I’m never going to be good enough.  So, I judge myself a lot.  The enemy is constantly whispering to me that I am not good enough.  And, often, that’s the way I see others too.  When I look at others, instead of looking at them through the lens of God’s love, I look at them through the lens of my own insecurities.  I sit there and nitpick their lives to pieces, overanalyzing things, because that’s what I do to myself.  Instead of loving them where they are, I see them as not good enough.  The enemy uses my own insecurities to keep me from loving others.  He whispers the same lies into my head about them that he does about me.  I have smudges on my lens that keep me from seeing the subjects in my life as they truly are.  My lens doesn’t let in enough light so that I can see people clearly, the way God sees them. 

God sees them, and me, through the lens of love, Jesus’ love.  Because of what He did on the cross, the minute we say yes to Him, we are covered with His blood.  Our sins are paid for.  God now sees us through the lens of the blood of Jesus.  How amazing is that?!?  That doesn’t mean we are perfect, or that God doesn’t know when we sin.  It means that, through Him, we are good enough.  Not on our own, never on our own, but through Jesus, we are more than conquerors!  It means that grace is extended to us when we deserve judgment.  How can I see others through any other lens?  How can I look at them and judge them when I am only a sinner in need of forgiveness every day of my life?  I’m not saying that we should condone sin, in our lives or in others’ lives.  Grace does not give us a license to sin.  What I am saying is that we have to see people through the right lens.  Your smudge may be different than mine is.  I don’t know how you see yourself or others.  This is just something that God has revealed to me that I have been doing, often to the people closest to me, my Christian brothers and sisters.  I’m being critical when I need to be encouraging.  Because I see them through the lens of my insecurities instead of the lens of God’s crazy amazing love.  People don’t need me to judge them; that’s not my job.  They need me to love them.  Jesus Himself said that the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself.  And I can only love them if I see them through the lens of God’s love.

How do we fix it?  How do we see people through God’s lens?

We let Him clean the lens.

We allow Him to wipe the smudges off so we can see clearly.  Sometimes, we let Him completely replace the lens because it was cracked or didn’t work right.  We ask Him to give us His lens instead of ours.  So that we can see people the way He does.  Seeing their sin, their faults, and loving them all the time.  Sometimes, lovingly correcting, sometimes lovingly encouraging.  But always loving.  Because that’s what God is.  God is love. 

Lord, I pray for You to help us see people the way You see them.  Let us not look at their faults and judge them for their faults.  Let us look at them and see what You see.  Fallen people, being made whole by a loving God.  If we need to correct someone, hold someone accountable, I pray we do it in love.  Otherwise it will drive people away.  It’s not our job to judge.  Lord, help us to see the difference between discernment and judgment.  Help us love people the way You love them.  Help us see the world through Your lens of love.