Re-educating the Gaze: Seeing the Invisible

Dawn does not arrive all at once.

First comes that indefinable moment, when night still reigns but something subtle begins to change in the air. It's not yet light – it's only the anticipation of light, a whisper of what will come, a presage so faint that only the most attentive eyes can perceive it.

Then, almost imperceptibly, contours begin to separate from darkness. They are not yet distinct, but they exist – shapes of promise suspended between the no-longer and the not-yet.

Only after – minutes or hours later, depending on the season – does the sun itself appear, transforming with its presence what was previously only intuited.

How many dawns have you missed because your eyes were still too heavy with sleep?

We live in a layered universe. The reality we perceive with our physical senses is only the surface of an infinitely deeper ocean. Beneath the crust of immediate appearances pulses an invisible world of meaning, purpose, and divine presence that we rarely manage to perceive.

Not because it doesn't exist, but because our eyes have not been educated to see it.

Think of the city of Dothan, besieged by the Syrian army. Elisha's servant wakes at dawn and sees only the overwhelming evidence of impending disaster: chariots, horses, soldiers surrounding the city like a ring of death. Panic overwhelms him as he runs to his master: "Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?" (2 Kings 6:15, NIV).

His question is your question. His panic is your panic. His eyes that see only the threat are your eyes that see only the impossible, only defeat, only the absence of a way out.

But listen to Elisha's response, pronounced with the calm of one who sees beyond the veil of appearance: "Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6:16, NIV).

The servant must have thought his master had gone mad. Which "those"? Where? How could he speak of "more" when they were just two men against an entire army?

And here comes the prayer that changes everything: "And Elisha prayed, 'Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.'" (2 Kings 6:17, NIV).

It was not a request for a miracle in the conventional sense. He wasn't asking for circumstances to change, for the enemy army to vanish, for the city walls to suddenly become impenetrable.

He was asking for a deeper, more subtle, more transformative miracle: the re-education of sight.

"Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha" (2 Kings 6:17, NIV).

Nothing had changed in external reality. The Syrian army was still there, as threatening as before. The danger had not diminished by a single degree. The apparent situation was identical.

And yet, everything had changed, because the servant's eyes now saw what had always been present but invisible to his uneducated gaze: the angelic host, the army of fire, the divine presence that surrounded and towered over the human threat.

This is not a story of escaping reality. It is a story of perceiving reality in its fullness.

Imagine a man who has lived his entire life in a room lit only by a candle. The walls seem gray, the colors indistinct, the shadows dominant. Then, one day, someone throws open the shutters and sunlight floods the room. Nothing has changed in the furniture, the walls, the objects – yet everything appears radically different. Colors explode in shades never perceived before, details emerge with crystal clarity, the atmosphere itself is transformed.

It's not the room that has changed. It's the light that reveals it for what it has always been.

So it is with the eyes of the soul. It's not that the world is devoid of divine presence – it's our eyes that have not been educated to perceive it.

In this very moment, as you read these words, you live immersed in a dual-layer reality. There is the surface of circumstances: the problem that oppresses you, the illness that afflicts you, the relationship that has broken, the dream that seems to be dying, the loneliness that wraps around you like a lead cloak.

But beneath that surface, interwoven with it like golden threads in a dark fabric, there is a deeper reality: the incessant presence, the uninterrupted work, the tireless action of divine grace which, even when it seems absent, is silently shaping every circumstance toward a more glorious end than you can imagine.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews expresses it with a phrase that should be meditated upon like a mantra: Moses "persevered because he saw him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27, NIV).

As seeing. This is the key. Faith is not a leap in the dark; it is a leap into light that your eyes have not yet been educated to perceive. It is not believing despite evidence; it is perceiving a deeper evidence that transcends the superficial.

Think of a forest that appears silent and still. To the uneducated eye, it seems like a static painting. But to the experienced naturalist, that forest is a universe teeming with life, movement, communication. He sees the subtle signs that tell stories invisible to others: that slightly scratched bark revealing the passage of a deer, that leaf moved in a non-random way signaling the presence of a nest, that slight movement of the ground indicating an underground burrow.

He doesn't see things that don't exist. He sees what exists but which others, with uneducated eyes, fail to perceive.

So it is with the eyes of faith.

What are the signs of dawn you cannot see, because your gaze is fixed only on the darkness that still persists? What are the angelic presences that surround you, invisible to your gaze focused on the army that besieges you? What are the golden threads interwoven in the dark fabric of your circumstances, which your uneducated eyes still cannot distinguish?

The re-education of sight begins with a simple prayer: "Lord, open my eyes so that I may see" (2 Kings 6:17, NIV).

It is not magic. It is a transformation of perception. It is the deliberate training to recognize the subtle signs of divine presence even when – especially when – external circumstances seem to deny it.

Imagine an apparently sterile and dead ground during winter. No visible sign of life on the surface. But beneath that frozen crust, invisible to the superficial eye, a silent revolution is underway. Dormant seeds are silently preparing to awaken. Roots are slowly extending their network. Imperceptible chemical processes are transforming the soil, predisposing it to the future explosion of life.

Nothing is visible on the surface. Yet, everything is happening in the invisible.

So it is with the seasons of your soul. What appears as desert may actually be a garden in gestation. What seems like death may actually be life preparing to explode with unimaginable vigor. What you interpret as abandonment may actually be meticulous preparation.

But to see this, your eyes must be re-educated to perceive subtle signs, to recognize the almost imperceptible traces of divine work even when – especially when – they seem contradicted by superficial evidence.

This is the true essence of mature faith: not the denial of reality, but the perception of a deeper reality; not the refusal to see what is evident, but the ability to see beyond the evident to the invisible that permeates it.

Think of a tapestry seen from the back. What appears is a chaos of threads, knots, apparently random interruptions, colors overlapping without recognizable pattern. Only by looking from the right side is the magnificent design revealed, where every thread, every knot, every apparent imperfection contributes to a harmony that was impossible to perceive from the other side.

Your life is that tapestry seen from the back. Events that seem random, painful, meaningless, are actually essential threads of a design that, seen from the divine perspective – the definitive perspective – reveals a beauty that transcends human understanding.

Re-educating the gaze means training yourself to intuit the design even when you can only see the back of the tapestry. It means developing the ability to perceive the invisible hand of the Weaver even when the threads seem to tangle chaotically.

Dawn does not arrive all at once. First comes that subtle change in the air, that almost imperceptible anticipation of light that is coming. Uneducated eyes miss it, continuing to see only the night that still dominates. Re-educated eyes perceive it and, even before the sun appears, already intuit the day that will come.

Today, in this very hour, while the external circumstances of your life may seem unchanged – while the army that besieges you is still visibly present, while the night still seems fixed and immobile – something sacred is happening in the invisible.

Chariots of fire surround you. Dormant seeds are preparing to germinate. Dawn is changing the quality of the air, even if your uneducated eyes cannot yet perceive it.

The real question is not whether God is present and active in your life. The real question is whether your eyes have been educated to see Him.

"Lord, open my eyes, that I may see."

Close your eyes now and visualize the scene at Dothan: on one side the Syrian army besieging the city, on the other the chariots of fire surrounding and towering over that human threat. Both are real. Both are present. But only one is visible to the uneducated eye.

Now, with delicate intentionality, superimpose that scene on your current situation. On one side, the circumstances that besiege you – the problem, the illness, the loss, the crisis. On the other, invisible but infinitely more powerful, the divine presence that surrounds you like an army of fire.

Whisper in the silence of your heart the prayer that can change everything: "Lord, open my eyes so that I may see" (2 Kings 6:17, NIV). Not for reality to change, but for your perception of reality to expand to include what has always been present but invisible to your uneducated gaze.

And as you let this prayer immerse itself in the depths of your being, allow your inner eyes to glimpse the subtle signs of dawn already coloring the horizon of your life, even if night still seems to wrap everything in its embrace.