Oh that I could have the cross painted on my eyeballs, that I could not see anything except through the medium of my Savior’s passion!
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to view the world solely through the lens of faith and the suffering of Christ.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon conveys a profound longing to immerse himself entirely in the teachings and sacrifices of Jesus Christ. By desiring to have the 'cross painted on his eyeballs,' he wishes to see everything in life filtered through the lens of Christ's passion, suggesting that the understanding of worldly experiences should be deeply rooted in spirituality and faith. Spurgeon emphasizes the importance of aligning one's perception with divine love and sacrifice, elevating the impact of faith in everyday life.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of viewing life through faith, I shared this quote to emphasize the message.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
I loved when Bush came out and said, 'We are losing the war against drugs.' You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.
As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history. Those of us who teach American Religion have a responsibility to tell all of the story, not just the nice touchy-feely parts.
Such reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world. Sensory perception is this ongoing interweavement: the terrain enters into us only to the extent that we allow ourselves to be taken up within that terrain.
The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be the return of the sensible finite into the intelligible infinite.
Life is the path you beat while you walk it It's the walking that beats the path It is not the path that makes the walk
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