open up your eyes…

Let me set the scene:

Lastnight my wife and I went to hear Coldplay at the beautiful Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA. By about 10PM, the sun had set and the concert was well underway. There, among a crush of people, the loud music, smells (odors) of sunscreen and  alcohol, as well as distant whiffs of someone’s illegal joint… I was struck by something divine…

I had just settled back on our blanket to look up at a sky full of stars you can only see in the middle of nowhere. As I laid there, I noticed that the longer I looked, the more my eyes became accustomed to seeing stars… and I was able to see more stars. At that moment, the thought popped into my head

God is like that… The more you look for him, the more your eyes adjust to what he looks like, and the more of him you see.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, Coldplay started playing their song Politik. Now I’m not going to assert that this is a particularly spiritual song; but as the song started, the lyrics jumped out at me brought me out of my star-gazing and back to my feed to watch the band…

Look at earth from outer space
Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don’t give me fake

Give me strength, reserve control
Give me heart and give me soul…

 Just as I get to my feet, about 50 pulsing strobe lights turned on the crowd and start pounding the words of the chorus into my senses…

And open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes
Open up your eyes

With those words, another thought crossed my mind… and kept getting  pounding this into my head each time they hit that chorus as if God was trying to expand on what I saw in the stars.

I’m all around you, trying to pound my presence into your head like those strobe lights… trying to make you aware of me surrounding you… you just need to open up your eyes!

Now I’m not trying to assert that Coldplay wrote this song to convey this message, but I do believe that God can show himself to you in some unexpected places. Although I’ve been trying to open myself up to experiencing God in real ways in my daily life, this one took me by suprise. I didn’t expect those words to come to me so clearly and poignantly at a concert. Yes, the show was amazing and they are an incredibly talented band. Yes, we had a great time watching a few thousand people suffer 97 degree temperatures with us and act riduculous, and yes we heard some great music. In the end though, that message to “open up my eyes” will stick with me for a long time.