“…the eyes of your understanding being enlightened…”
I want to understand. A friend of mine was killed last week. It hurts, especially because the person who killed her was someone close to her (her husband), and also a person that I’ve known. It’s been a year or two since I’ve spoken to either of them. Could something I had done change today? I don’t know. I just don’t understand.
Here in the greek, the word for understanding is “dianoia,” which means: deep thought, properly the faculty (mind or its disposition). The situation that happened here is really screwed up, and I feel like I have nothing to give the situation. [Enter the prayer room] I feel that all I can do is cry out…to yell at the sky, and weep on the floor. “Why God!?!” The dianoia here in this moment is the big picture. The wisdom, the revelation, and the knowledge of Him present in this moment. And not just a surface mental “making sense of,” but a deep well of understanding; knowing well that God sees clearly the big picture. A cry for understanding is a cry to see what God sees…that He would reveal that to my own eyes in their murky blindness.
“God, it hurts. I don’t understand. But I trust You. Though I don’t understand, I trust. My prayer is that I would see clearly through Your eyes; and not just in this situation, but the small scope of my life. What is a man, but a breath? Lord, let this breath count. I pray.”