Looking ...Seeing

"Looking unto Jesus."  (Heb. 12.2)

Why does the writer use the word "looking"?
Maybe it's because the looking is so different from learning with the mind.

The mind receives information and then there follows a process of classifying it -
How important?
How urgent?
How relevant?
How costly? 

All these appraisals are influenced by our own criteria, 
by the fruits of our thinking, of our living, 
by our fears, and our ambitions, 
by all our cares, and all our hopes.

Seeing is different.
Seeing bypasses our reasoning, and stamps itself directly upon us.
We know with certainty what we have seen.
We know the size, the shape, the color, the distance.
Seeing informs us in a way which skips over any interfering conditions.

How terrible when we proclaim that which we do not know.
Jesus said to the pharisees, "ye say, we see,"
followed by, "therefore your sin remaineth."
The sin, the darkness, the ignorance, the death remain until sight comes.

The Old Testament ends with the promise of the Sun arising
And Luke's gospel starts with the prophetic declaration that "the Dayspring from on high hath visited us."(Lk. 1.78)

Today there are so many transmitting the fruits of their own thinking,
but God seeks a people who will come to Him with the prayer of the heart, and then see with open eyes.