Keep your eye on the ball… in the eye of the storm… a bird’s-eye view… beauty in the eye of the beholder… a second set of eyes… in the blink of an eye… camel through the eye of a needle… eye for an eye… evil eye… I could go on and on but I think you get the point. I played baseball in my younger days and heard the “keep your eye on the ball” idiom all the time. I use this phrase when I teach my own kids to catch a ball or attempt to take a swing at it with a bat. “In the blink of an eye”, this phenomenon occurs when you put a bowl of candy or chocolate in front of some sugar crazed kids.
“In the eyes of the Lord”. This is a common expression used when we read through the books of 1 & 2 Kings. Most of the introductory words we read in respect to the reign of each king tells us up front the outcome of their rule. Quite simply they either “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” or “did evil in the eyes of the Lord”. We don’t have to read much further to understand all the particulars of what ‘right & evil’ are. I do believe it is a valuable lesson to spend the time to read deeper into the actions of the kings, to understand how what they did shaped the culture and ultimately the lives of the people. When I reflect on what each of the good and bad kings did, I came to this conclusion: the bad kings focused their actions through their own (self-centered) eyes and the good kings measured their actions as though they were looking through the eyes of the Lord (doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord)
What if we all operated our leadership focus from within this perspective, “lead, teach and preach through the eyes of the Lord. Our eyes, our perspective, has been skewed by the the cultures we live in. 1 and 2 Kings lay out some very clear principles and some not so obvious examples of both “good” leadership, and leadership “folly”. We can learn from the good and from the bad. Learning from those who came before us, should encourage us not make the same costly mistakes. We live in a day and age where our focus is easily distracted and pulled away from what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Spending time in God’s Word, reading, reflecting and praying for direction will help sharpen that focus. It will help us to lead in a way that is right and good.
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