in your eyes – –  I see the light and the heat
in your eyes oh, – –  I want to be that complete
“In Your Eyes” Peter Gabriel
 
“Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y’know the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then… oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin’, the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces.” 
Quint “Jaws”

I’ve noticed something, people don’t look each other in the eyes anymore.

Maybe it is because we are all so mesmerized by the tiny screens dancing on our phones or we are zoned in on the flickering pixels flashing on the flat piece of plastic and liquid crystals hanging on the wall. Whatever the case, we’re missing each other’s eyes.

The eyes, as they say, are the windows to the soul. I believe it.

In my study on 1 Samuel 16 this week, I stumbled upon a very interesting portion of scripture. It is the first time we meet David, son of Jesse. Samuel the prophet is looking for the next person he is to anoint as king over the people of Israel. He is told to go to the house of Jesse and after seeing 7 of Jesse’s sons paraded before him, Samuel asks if there is anyone else?

Yes, Jesse has one more son, a young boy, maybe 15 or 16 at the time. He is the ragamuffin of the bunch who is stuck watching the sheep out in the fields. I don’t think Samuel was too excited about considering him as God’s possible choice, but God tells Samuel to anoint him anyway. When he arrives the narrator of the story describes him in this way:

“Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.”

Ruddy means he had robust color of amber hair and sun-glazed skin. But the phrase “beautiful eyes” is what I want you to notice. We are quick to jump to the word handsome because we are drawn to attractive people. Handsome was also used to describe Saul when we first met him in 1 Samuel 9:2, but only David was described with having beautiful eyes. 

I was curious to see if this distinction meant anything? Saul was handsome, so was David, but he also had the X-factor – – the beautiful eyes. In my research, there seems to be the idea that beautiful eyes refers to a person’s countenance. “Handsome” refers to the physical symmetry of form and appeal; “Countenance” in biblical jargon is the visible display of a person’s internal attitude and spiritual state of the soul.

Saul was only handsome, a good looking man, David had life in his eyes. While Saul was impressive, David was compelling. 

As I meditated on this little nugget of difference between the two words, I started realizing that there really is something to this. Have you ever noticed that people who know and want God have something beautiful about them? You can see it in their eyes!

I am sure, most of you reading this know exactly what I mean.

I will never forget a moment in my life when I came across a terrible person —  he was just plain mean and rude. He was the type of person who could rip you into a thousand broken pieces with just his words, and he didn’t even care. A friend who was with me said this to me after he left, “Did you see his eyes, they have no life in them?” No life in them.

But then there are those people whose eyes dance. There is laughter in a look. You know inside they are alive, happy, full of joy and it makes them beautiful. I have also noticed after you know someone for a while you no longer notice how they look. It happens in marriage when you can look at your spouse and see their countenance when once you only saw their form. 

Young love focuses on form and symmetry, old love sees eyes.

It is the eyes that really makes a person beautiful. Eyes that have hope. Eyes that are tender when they look upon your pain. Eyes that are hungry to hear the details of your personal story. Beauty is found in the eyes. I have known some of the most beautiful people that others call ugly. I have seen wrinkled faces that display more youth than a blond haired 18-year-old model who is only caught up in self.

I wonder, when this old broken down body is shed and traded in for a new one, will our eyes stay the same? Do you want to be seen as beautiful? Work on fixing your eyes, and the way to do this is by first working on your heart.