Getting Our Eyes Fixed

December 19

(Psalm 141:1-10 NIV) “A psalm of David. O Lord, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you. {2} May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. {3} Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. {4} Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies. {5} Let a righteous man strike me--it is a kindness; let him rebuke me--it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it. Yet my prayer is ever against the deeds of evildoers; {6} their rulers will be thrown down from the cliffs, and the wicked will learn that my words were well spoken. {7} They will say, "As one plows and breaks up the earth, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave." {8} But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign Lord; in you I take refuge--do not give me over to death. {9} Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, from the traps set by evildoers. {10} Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety.”

(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV) “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. {17} For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. {18} So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Many of us suffer from broken hearts that only God can mend. But what we often don’t realize is that our eyes are just as broken as our hearts. We must fix our eyes as well. They tend to focus on the wrong things. They tend to see what they want to see, instead of what’s real. Hearts and eyes often live in denial together. The solution (both short and long term) is to fix our eyes. It won’t help to just close them -- we must fix them on something different. David recommends that this “something” be the Lord. In the midst of wicked evildoers, he chose to fix his eyes on God. He found his way through trouble and found his way home because of who his eyes were fixed upon. Paul had essentially the same advice for the Corinthians: “Stop fixing your eyes on the temporary and begin to hone in on the eternal. See the unseen with new eyes of faith.” This is still good advice today. Fix your eyes. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day