The Objects of Our Gaze
I sat in the weathered leather chair in my bedroom feeling off-kilter. My chest felt wound up in a knot—an obvious signal that all was not well in my soul. Then there was the other obvious signal which had happened earlier that morning at Lucky’s Market. I pushed the cart through the checkout aisle without stopping, unloading my groceries, or paying. There I went cruising by the store clerk and headed toward the door. I was in such a fog that it wasn’t until I heard my son, who was standing across the counter from the store clerk, call out, “Mom!” that I awakened to the reality that something was amiss.
Hello to the body which tells the deeper story.
As I journaled, I asked God to show me what was stirring in my depths, manifesting in this upturned soul. Rain fell gently outside my window, it’s rhythm helping to release the emotions bound up within me through tears that gently rolled down my cheeks.
As my fingers clicked keys, I was able to access the anxiety I was feeling about writing Out of Zion and how it might bring strain to my relationships with people whom I deeply love. I awoke to how terribly inadequate I felt about some teaching opportunities ahead of me. Throughout the previous several years, I had been practicing asking God to lift my gaze to His gaze at times when my gaze was transfixed on my circumstances, which often resulted in anxiety and stress in my body. Throughout the previous three months, I’d been asking God to enable me to see Him more as He is—to unveil His face to me.
a sideways gift
For most of my life, I was unaware of how where my gaze landed affected my body. It took 15 years of managing and seeking to heal fibromyalgia and adrenal fatigue for me to see how profoundly my emotions affect my body. What an awakening it was. Thank you, fibromyalgia and adrenal fatigue, for ushering me into stillness and presence and a mystical healing journey. Thank you for teaching me to lift my gaze to the face of God.
So there I sat in my tears with my tight chest, feeling inadequate to enter into opportunities God had invited me to pursue and Moses popped into my mind. I knew the story well. The story of the one God called to usher God’s enslaved people out of the grip of the world’s superpower and its ruler. And how the calling unearthed his felt inadequacy. So I flipped the pages of my Bible to read again the story of one with whom I was standing in solidarity for the first time in my life. My head had read the story countless times, but at this moment, I felt like I was standing with Moses and speaking to our Father in one voice, “But Moses/Lisa said to the Lord, “Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharoah/my audiences listen to me?” I get it Moses. Like never before I feel you.
What I wasn’t expecting was God’s response. “God told Moses, ‘Look at me.’” (MSG)
Look at me.
Lift your gaze to my gaze. What a gentle and kind reminder of the antidote to all of the circumstances and emotions which disrupt the peace Jesus offers me. There’s something about locking my gaze in His which releases me from myself—from feeling like I need to prove myself as worthy in ten different ways.
“Look on him and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.” (Psalm 34:5) Maggie Ross writes in Writing the Icon of the Heart, “For in the light of this radiance, all else is forgotten, all that preoccupies and troubles us, all our pain and dismay. It is not that they are excized or erased but our pain becomes part of something larger than ourselves, and is transfigured.”
Resting in His gaze in my weathered leather chair, listening to the rhythmic rainfall with a tear-stained face, I was reminded that I am hidden with Christ in God and as a result, I am already approved and delighted in so I’m free from the felt need prove myself anymore. I was reminded that He is a good God who equips His people to respond to His invitations. I was reminded that I really want my life to be about living for His glory and not my own. I was reminded that I am safe in His care. My chest began to unwind, my cheeks dried, and I eased back into His rest. Perhaps this was a taste of a transfiguration.
As you make your way through the week, pay attention to where you fix your gaze and the effect the object of your gaze has on your body. When appropriate, invite Jesus to lift your gaze into His affectionate gaze.