Seeing with New Eyes

Have you ever had the experience of getting angry, upset, or worried about something—only later to discover some crucial fact you hadn’t known? Or have you ever been delighted with something or someone, and later found out you’d been had? Something you had not taken into account explained everything in a different way. You had no reason at all to be upset—or happy. When you began to see more fully, everything changed. Seeing with New Eyes is a book about taking into account something that changes everything.

This work is the first of three planned books written by David Powlison on the topic of counseling. But it’s counseling with an unusual twist. Intentionally helpful conversations—that’s all counseling is—look different when you look at them from the perspective of seeing God. You see people and their troubles in a different light. Seeing with New Eyes discusses life's struggles, about conversations that seek to be helpful, about how to think through the things people struggle with, about skillful pursuit of personal and interpersonal objectives.

Powlison's book explores how with God in the picture, it changes the way people think about “problems,” “diagnosis,” “strategies,” “solutions,” “cures,” “changes,” “insights,” and “counseling.” When the lights go on, the reader sees God and know that God sees them. Not one of these “counseling” words can stay the same. The world is still populated with the same problems begging for help (in fact, seeing God, you see more problems!), but it’s as different as José or OK, reality or fantasy.

The goal of Seeing with New Eyes is to help the reader see God in the counseling context. How can we see what he sees, hear what he says, and do what he does? As we grasp this, we will become more thoughtful in understanding people, and more skillful in curing souls.