When You Look At Me What Do You See?

“When you look at me tell me what you see.

I don’t have time for games…

FATHER, TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE! Please.”

One of my favorite movies growing up was Cool Runnings. Feel the rhythm… feel the rhyme… get on up it’s bobsled time…. AHHHH!!!! It never gets old. Or, how about Sanka… ya dead? Ya man! Awesome. However, there is one segment of the movie that always seemed to stick with me. It was when Junior’s father came to bring his son home because he though he was wasting his time. Junior pleads with his father… “tell me what you see” (when you look at me). And… I think our students are asking us the same question as well.

When you look at me… do you see anything that looks like Jesus?

When you look at me… do you see someone who is valuable?

When you look at me… will you keep looking at me with dignity or will you turn away like everyone else when they see my ugliness?

When you look at me… will you focus on me giving me your full attention?

When you look at me… do you see the potential that I feel to be used mightily by God but nobody else seems to see?

When you look at me… do you see a man or a boy? A woman or girl?

When you look at me… do you see the broken or the redeemed?

When you look at me… do you see the past or the future?

When you look at me… do you see the Church?

When you look at me… are you proud?

When you look at me… am I a number in a program or a soul on a journey?

This is the notice me, like me generation. Their entire lives are curated digitally for the world to see, in real-time, the reality show of their lives. At the end of elementary school they will begin working on their own personal branding as they press on to beef up that impressive college résumé. They will spend the next seven years (6-12 grade) spending so much time on an attempt to prefect the external that their spiritual life can become lost in oceans of illusions. They will look in the mirror and ask themselves this question… what do I see? They will come to you the leader and ask you… what do you see? How we help students answer and seek answers to these questions is key for their spiritual discipleship. For as leaders that are studying and communicating the truth we need to be sure we are communicating what God first and foremost thinks about them. Tell your students regularly what God thinks about them. Make it crystal clear to them.

So when you look at them… what do you see?