A few years ago, I was at a Women’s conference and one of the speakers came to me in the ministry time and asked for a prophetic word in regards to what she might speak about during her time at the conference. It was a bit of an honour really!! I enquired of the Holy Spirit and the only thing that came to mind was ‘Apple of your eye’. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, and it didn’t seem very biblical to me… After a little searching, I discovered some verses:
Psalm 17: 6 – 9 (NIV)
I call on you, my God, for you will answer me;
turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the wicked who are out to destroy me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.
What does it mean to be kept as the apple of God’s eye? It means to be the centre of his attention, for his gaze to be over you, and for his love to cover you – pretty much like a father watches lovingly over a child. More than that, we almost become part of His eye. Verse 8 in the Passion translation, brings this meaning out for us a little. It says,
Protect me from harm; Keep an eye on me like you would a child[c] reflected in the twinkling of your eye. Yes, hide me within the shelter of your embrace, under your outstretched wings.
I like this. Sitting in God’s embrace with his loving gaze fully over me and my reflection sitting right in the middle of his eyes. Kept as the apple of His eye. I think that as I am positioned here, and as I become almost part of the reflection in his eye, He also becomes part of me. If I ponder this a little more, it is also the cry of my heart in many ways. Maybe David felt the same way I do? Although in his situation, he would have been a little more distressed and desperate. I don’t want His gaze to leave me! I pretty much fear that happening. I kind of like the fact that he has taken up residence within me, and my thoughts of Him and my longing after Him are a regular, daily occurrence. My heart is set on Him, and I would like to think that His heart is also set on me. I am quietly aware that he is with me. I am the apple of His eye.
The phrase also comes up in Zechariah, Ch 2: 8 - 9 – again reflecting God’s love and concern for his people as they are in exile; while they are in a foreign land.
For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye - I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.”
This verse demonstrates a more defiant, jealous and powerful love. It reflects how defining God’s love can be for us. It covers us, shapes us, protects us, and goes out to fight for us. I would like to think that David was a man who personally knew God’s love for him when he wrote Psalm 17. He was, after all, a man after God’s own heart.
The book of Song of Solomon also speaks of this passionate and fiery love of God in Ch 8: 6- 7 (The Passion Translation)
Fasten me upon your heart as a seal of fire forevermore. This living, consuming flame will seal you as my prisoner of love.[a] My passion[b] is stronger than the chains of death and the grave, all consuming as the very flashes of fire from the burning heart of God.[c] Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire being. Rivers of pain and persecution will never extinguish this flame. Endless floods will be unable to quench this raging fire that burns within you. Everything will be consumed. It will stop at nothing as you yield everything to this furious fire until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.
God’s love is consuming… It is vast, and relentless, and it is ours as we let Him in.
In my own life, however, I feel like the love of God is a little elusive. I have known the voice of God, the peace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. However, the love of God is not something that I feel I minster in particularly well, although I feel like God / Holy Spirit has access to my heart and that he kind of messes with it from time to time, as only He can. He has special access J. Maybe I shouldn’t doubt God’s love for me as he really has revealed his love for me in many different ways . Although I don’t often feel God’s love I cannot doubt the love that he has for me, and it is a good thing to ponder and position myself for it too.
One of the most extraordinary experiences that I have had in healing rooms, was with a gentleman who came in with multiple organ failure. He looked pretty unwell. He was a Christian counsellor by trade and I would say he also knew God quite intimately; there was a certain history there. The one thing I felt all over him was the love of God. He was weeping (I mean, what else could you do?), and God was ministering to him powerfully. I could only watch, and any words I had seemed obsolete. As time went on, his pain subsided, and the sensation of swelling in his abdomen decreased. I can’t say whether or not this gentleman was healed (for all I know he may have passed and gone to be with the Lord that day), but I can say that he encountered the great love of God in a crazy, amazing way.
Ephesians 2: 3 – 6
…Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 3: 17 – 19
…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
I am the apple of his eye. I am at the centre of His gaze. He is my Lord and King, my father, my friend, and the lover of my heart. You are there too.
I can’t remember exactly what the speaker spoke about at that conference that I was at. It was something about abiding in the trinity. And I don’t even remember her even mentioning the phrase. We live in Him and He lives in us. But it is so much more than that. I am thinking David experientially knew this when he wrote Psalm 17. We are the apple of His eye, hidden in the shelter of His embrace. Lord, take us deeper into this place.
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