What Are You Looking At?

I write in my Bible. I underline, draw diagrams, use colored pencils to highlight recurring words and themes, and make dated notes in the margins. Psalm 119:37 has been underlined, highlighted, and has a single word written in the margin followed by an exclamation point. “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” Beside that verse, I have written one thing in red ink: TV!

That comment was added years ago. Now it stands for anything with a screen. My computer. My laptop. My Kindle. My smart phone. “Worthless” is a very good word to describe most of what I choose to direct my attention to during times of self-dictated R&R. Those times when I tell myself I have earned the right to relax; to not think about anything important; to entertain myself. The problem is, I am not consciously thinking about what my eyes are taking in; it’s just flooding into my mind and heart like an untamed sewage overflow.  It is only later, when I discover I have images, snippets of dialogue, even fantasies bubbling up from those unguarded places in my soul that I realize I have been contaminated by worthless things.

That, however, is a dialogue and a lesson for another time. Lately I’ve been convicted of something even more sinister. Another application of that convicting verse.

What am I choosing to focus on as I contemplate my life? My church? My family? My community? My world?

My honest answer? Circumstances. Financial difficulties. Declining health. Aging. The very real sufferings of dear friends. The rapid disintegration of moral and cultural underpinnings in worldwide societies.  The tragic stories of Christian leaders stumbling, falling, living double lives, or bowed down by weights of depression and discouragement. My own continual naval-gazing, focusing on my sins, weaknesses, failures, loneliness, purposelessness, dwindling abilities and draining lack of energy.

It is not possible to “un-see” these things. If you are living on this planet, you see them. Around you. In your life. In the lives of friends, family, headline-makers, celebrities, refugees, the war-torn, the helpless, the hopeless.

It is said that the eyes are the “window to the soul.” The origins of that specific quote are a little unclear; it has been attributed to William Shakespeare, Leonardo DaVinci, and the philosopher Cicero. But the genesis of that truth comes from Jesus, speaking to his disciples in what we call the Sermon on the Mount:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,

 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  (Matthew 6:22,23a)

Interestingly, what Jesus said just before this statement gives even more clarity to the thought that what we see, focus on, pay attention to, is most important:

                For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

The Psalmist who wrote the long, stylized prayer we know as Psalm 119 knew well the importance of choosing carefully what we focus on.

Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame,

having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. (Psalm 119:5,6)

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. (Psalm 119:15)

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. (Psalm 119:18)

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. (Psalm 119:37)

My eyes long for your promise; I ask, “When will you comfort me?” (Psalm 119:82)

My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise. (Psalm 119:123)

Take a moment and reflect on what the Psalmist is praying for – and what he bases his requests on:  the word of God and the character of God. He calls the word of God by several names: statutes, commandments, precepts, law, promise. And based upon what the Psalmist has known from the word of God, he looks to the character of God as revealed in His word: God’s ways. God’s promises, God’s comfort, God’s salvation, and God’s righteousness.

I don’t remember how or where I first encountered this quote, but it defines the best answer to the question, “What am I looking at? “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.” (Robert Murray M’Cheyne)

The author of Hebrews puts it this way: …looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

As the veil between life on this earth and what lies on the other side of death’s door thins, I seem to have a clearer vision of what it will be like to see the glory of the resurrected King, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know, from the witness of Scripture and the inner confirmation of the Holy Spirit, that at that moment and throughout eternity, I will be enraptured by Him.

But by God’s grace, that eternal reality is becoming more real and much more precious on this side; meaning that I have begun to experience Him as my greatest treasure. Not what He does for me or gives to me – but Him. The apostle John tells us the Son of God, the very Word of God, clothed himself in our humanity and was the light of our world (John 1:1-14). That same apostle was granted the privilege of being swept up into the timeless reality of the presence of God and seeing that same Lord Jesus Christ as the only light (Revelation 21:22-22:5).

A prayer I often send heavenward in the mornings as I fight to focus on the things – the Person – that really matter, comes from a vignette John shares in his gospel. Jesus had just made his heralded entry into Jerusalem, with crowds waving palm branches and shouting their hopes that he was the king who had come to save them from their oppressors (John 12:12-19) while the Pharisees muttered in the background, looking for ways to get Jesus out of the way. Many people from other nations were in Jerusalem at the same time, and John tells the brief story of two Greek men who had one urgent request of the disciples:

 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:20,21)

That’s it. That’s my prayer. “Father, I would see Jesus.” In the midst of it all – in circumstances, in suffering, in questions and doubts and fears, in the apparent instability of the world – my heart’s cry is, “I want to see Jesus.” It is another way of praying through what has become my life’s verse:

… I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…that I may know  him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings…

(Philippians 3:7-10)

That same plea has become the bedrock of my prayers for others in my life. I have family members who are not reconciled to God. I have friends battling cancer and other serious health issues; friends serving as missionaries in several places around the world; friends planting churches; friends searching for church homes; friends buckling under the weight of wayward children, broken relationships, financial losses, and crippling fears of what the future may hold. Even as I pray for their specific needs, my deepest desire for them is the same as my own: that they may see and know Jesus.

I pray the Word:

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus 

Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 

having the eyes of  your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe (Ephesians 1:16-19a).

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, 

and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1,2)

By God’s design and gifting, I am basically a teacher. I’ve read many articles on the rules and how-to’s of blogging and this essay breaks every one of them. But another passage in Philippians recently caught my attention as I was studying what God has to say about what we are to look at:

Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk

according to the example you have in us. (Philippians 3:17)

I was struck by two lessons in Paul’s words. First, that we should watch and imitate the way spiritually mature believers live. Second, that we should be one of those Christ-centered examples in our life and conduct.

So I share what the Triune God has taught me through His written word, with the prayer that someone may be equipped and encouraged by my example – and challenged to answer the question God posed to me:

What are you looking at?