It happened, late one afternoon, that David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king&8217;s house. And he saw a woman bathing&8230; &045;2 Samuel 11

Like many passages, it tells us very simply about what someone sees and then what they think and do next.

This powerful connection between what we see and what we think is crucial everywhere in the Bible and in everyone&8217;s relationship with God, then and now.

We tell ourselves, of course, that everyone knows how the eyes and the mind work. The eyes simply shows the mind what&8217;s going on in front of us. We believe what we can see. That&8217;s how it works.

We laugh, in fact, at the old idea that somehow the eyes were a kind of headlight that generated light from the brain that enabled people to see.

The real truth is that the mind and our eyes are always in a deep conversation with each other. The fact that a brain injury can affect a person&8217;s sight, no matter how perfect the eyes remain, is a little reminder that the brain is actually in charge of what and how well we see.

So it is perhaps little wonder that God is always deeply engaged in conversation and struggle with our minds.

It&8217;s in the mind that we frame the interpretation for everything we experience. So it is crucial to everything just how healthy our minds are.

Take David, for example. His lust for power and lust for Bathsheba&8217;s beauty blind him. David can&8217;t see his own relationship with God.

He closes his mind&8217;s eye toward God and plunges off to conquest. And he doesn&8217;t let up or blink until he has what he wants. What people decide to see is based on what is in our minds is more powerful than we imagine or acknowledge.

That is why it is so striking how Jesus sees people. He doesn&8217;t seem them in idealistic visions or naive blindness. Jesus sees people as they really are. Faith in God&8217;s love blows all the dust and dirt out of our minds so that we can finally see the true Light. At long last, we can see what really is and what will really be.

Robert Montgomery serves as preaching minister of Cahaba Valley Church