Apple of His Eye: A phrase used by many to imply favor and delight in another.
Psalm 17:8
Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings (The Psalmist beseeching God)
Pr 7:2
Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. (The Lord instructing his people through King Solomon’s wisdom.)
Deut 32:10
In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, (The Lord’s behavior toward his people represented by Jacob)
Zechariah 2:8
For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After he has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you–for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye—
Ancient people called the pupil of the eye the “apple” of the eye. When two people stand together closely, eye to eye in adequate light, the pupil of the eye of each reflects the image of the other. When we are close to God, focused on Him, and searching for ourselves in Him (or Him in us!) we are the apple of His eye and He is the apple of ours.
As I have come to understand, to be the apple of God’s eye implies three things:
Proximity
Focus
Security
If we stay in that posture, we will be safe, accountable, and obedient to the Lord. And even when we glance away for a moment, he does not ever blink. He keeps His eye upon us.
Updste: 8/19/2022
When a former recovery student of mine responded to a scripture post from Ephesians with the following, I was touched.
“I will never forget being broken and wanting to die, and I looked in your eyes and saw Jesus. 🥰”
Then I remembered one lesson I teach again and again….and replied to her:
“You know, Ashley, I teach you ladies that you are the apple of God’s eye ….. and we do the exercise of standing elbow width apart in good light ….. and what you see in one another’s eyes is the image of yourself….. If you saw Jesus in my eyes it is because His image resides in you and He had given you the eyes to see Himself in you through my eyes!”
From 9/6/15:
Another thought on apples…
Twice this week as I have been doing devotionals and Bible studies I have come across this quote – “You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples that come from a seed.” Sometimes we are prone to question why God has us do something….Consider Philip. He was preaching quite successfully in Samaria, then God up and snatched him to a roadway by a pond where he saw an Ethiopian eunuch reading a scroll. So he asked, “Do you know what you are reading?” He explained the Scripture to this man, baptized him, and sent him on his way. Tradition has it that the Ethiopian took the Gospel back to his home country and established the church there in Africa. And Philip went back on about his preaching. How many people may have come to Christ from that simple encounter that was, I’m sure, unexpected for Philip, but was a divine appointment by God? How many seeds are planted day in and day out as we witness to our faith? We likely will never see the apples that come from the seeds. Nor do we need to. We just need to keep planting the seeds and trusting God for the harvest.