Eyes on the Lord

Driving down the road is easy if our eyes are fixed on the road; but look to the left or look to the right and it is funny how the car will sway left or right. Plans for a future career are set, goals established, and on we go towards that special career of choice; but sometimes, distractions come and ten years later the future career, once planned for, is nowhere in sight. Where the person ended up ten years later may not be bad; but it is not the original path chosen in life.

Whatever we fix our eyes upon is usually what we work towards. If we fix our eyes upon attaining a new car, then we usually get the new car. If we wish a new dress for a special event, we work towards shopping and trying on dresses until the perfect dress is found. Some decisions can take longer to finalize, like buying a house, changing jobs, or buying that new car. Most decisions we have to live with our whole lives; so we better choose carefully. How about who we will marry? That is certainly a life-long decision no one should go into lightly.

So, how do we go about making wise decisions? What really guides the first part of our decision making? Our eyes! We see that special dress hanging in the back of the store and no one is getting in our way to buy it. We see the perfect looking vehicle at the car dealership and again nothing is getting in our way to attain it. Not even the debt incurred to attain the modern-looking car gets in our way. Most of the time, people do not even care if they go into debt to attain something; just as long as they get what they “see.” Does it really matter anyhow? It is only one more bill?

Our eyes affect every decision we make. People see an attractive-looking person across the room and that is their first impression of that person. They want to meet and talk with that individual. After all, talking is okay-right? Other thoughts that pass the mind are, “I’m just going out to lunch with a co-worker. I’m just going to the company, Christmas party. I’m not going to marry anyone at work.” Many times, years later, a person finds themselves married to an unsaved person from the workplace and they think, “How did this happen?” It all happened when the “eyes” saw someone they thought was attractive.

Proverbs 4:25-26 “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. 26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.”

Psalm 123:1-2 “Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. 2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”

This is an encouragement for us all to follow the verses above. To keep our eyes “straight before thee,” to lift up our eyes “unto thee,” and to have our eyes “wait upon the Lord.” If we can keep our eyes on the Lord and his plans for our lives, we can save ourselves a lot of heart ache. We can find the correct friends, the correct houses, the correct jobs, and especially the correct spouses. We will incur less debt and have less problems. Yes, we will always have problems, that is life. But it would be great if we could avoid some problems we put upon ourselves by making wrong decisions based upon what we “see.”

Think about David looking upon Bathsheba. He was supposed to be in battle with his warriors; but he tarried in Jerusalem. In the evening, he went up to the rooftop and “looked” upon the women bathing. His eyes were not where they should be.

II Samuel 11:2 “And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”

Think about the Israelites when they wanted a king and they desired to be like the rest of the world. They wanted a king they could “see” sitting on the throne and ruling. Today, we are still “seeing” the destruction of God’s people because of this decision many years ago.

I Kings 8:6-7 “But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. 7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.”

So, remember:

• keep our eyes on the Lord
• keep our eyes straight ahead
• Do not look left
• Do not look right
• Read the Bible daily
• Go to church
• Pray

Let’s do all things possible to keep our eyes on the Lord.