Open My Eyes

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

You can read the same chapters you have read for years and feel like nothing is opening up. The words are familiar; the meaning has gone flat. You wonder if the Bible has gone quiet — and then you wonder if the issue is closer to your own eyes than to the page. You do not need a different translation. You need eyes opened. Wondrous things have been there the whole time; you have just been looking past them.

This passage opens with a request that sounds bigger than it looks: "Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live and keep Your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law." Asking to be dealt with bountifully, then asking for opened eyes — both at once. Living and keeping His Word are connected to seeing what is actually there. Then comes the line that names the writer's posture: "I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me." He does not feel at home in the world he is walking through. The commandments are not background — they are the way he keeps from getting lost. Then desire and pressure named together: "My soul breaks with longing for Your judgments at all times." That is hunger that hurts. He acknowledges what is actually happening around him: "Princes also sat and spoke against me, but Your servant meditated on Your statutes." That is a striking contrast — powerful people gathered against him, and he stayed in His Word. The close lands tender and firm: "Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors." The Bible here is companion, advisor, delight.

• Right now, pray out loud: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law" — before you read another line of anything else today. • Write this down: "Where have I been looking past wondrous things because my eyes have not been asking to be opened?" • Repeat this line when the page feels flat: "Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors."

Stop. Breathe. Let the prayer for opened eyes land, then tell Him exactly where you need to see something fresh — out loud if you can.

God, I am a stranger in the earth, and I do not know the way without Your word. Deal bountifully with Your servant — open my eyes to see wondrous things You have already put on the page. Do not hide Your commandments from me, even when princes are sitting and speaking against me. Let my soul break with longing for Your judgments instead of growing numb. Make Your testimonies my delight and my counselors, more trustworthy than the loud voices in the room. You're still my Shepherd.

The wondrous things are already there — ask for the eyes to see them.