Seeing what matters most

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Recently I've been reading this fascinating and unexpectedly uplifting book - The Scientist in the Crib.  Fascinating because of the scientific studies of babies (and the ingenious and extremely dedicated ways in which they conduct experiments), and uplifting because every wonderful discovery about babies confirm again and again that our God is good and glorious and designed us to enjoy and reflect His goodness and glory. It echoes some of the thoughts I had written about earlier.

So many baby books, especially the more old-fashioned ones, portray babies as oblivious and indiscriminating. Yet the authors of the book - preeminent child psychologists - show us that even newborn infants are highly discerning. Far more than black and white graphics or rattles or rotating toys, young babies prefer the human face, the human form, and can tell the difference between various emotional expressions and act accordingly.

 And the most wonderful thing of all is that even the limitations in newborns' vision is that they can see with perfect clarity the face of someone holding them in their arms - the perfect distance for their nearsighted eyes.

I love the way the authors put it: "Babies seem designed to see the people who love them more clearly than anything else."

It gave me goosebumps to think about how God designed us to see Love more clearly than anything else. Yet somehow, over time, we all lose this clarity. We see ourselves more clearly than we see our Maker. Other voices become louder. What we can't see clearly, we worry about tremendously. We're not so sure we're loved. We're distracted by other sights and sounds, by pursuits and disappointments and uncertainties.

It is a complex world out there, as babies will gradually learn. And it is only natural and right to learn about the danger, the pain, and the brokenness of the world and of ourselves. But these cannot take the place of what should be front and center now and for all eternity - the One who is unchanging, unbreakable, unrelenting Love.


To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens! 
Behold, as the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    till he has mercy upon us.

Psalm 123


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