Where are Your Eyes Fixed?

Where are your eyes fixed?

What are they focused on? What are you looking at?

I'm not talking about the things you watch on TV or online. I'm not talking about your physical eyes at all.

I guess you could say I'm talking about the eyes of your heart when I ask these questions. The internal part of you that looks at your life and what's happening.

Where are the eyes of your heart fixed?

Are they fixed on the challenged you're facing? Or are they fixed on God?

I was challenged by this thought recently, when I was studying 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

"Therefor we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

The troubles Paul was referring to here as "light and momentary" were anything but from a human perspective. They were big. They were challenging. He was being persecuted for his bold preaching of the gospel. He had and would be beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked. Yet, he called them "light and momentary troubles."

How was Paul able to do this? How could he call all of that "light and momentary"?

Paul goes on in these verses to explain how. He spoke about where he fixed his eyes. The place he looked for perspective on his problems. When he kept his eyes fixed on God and what God was up to in them, he was able to call them "light and momentary troubles." It was all about his perspective.

When we look at our problems, the challenging things we're facing, they grow bigger. The more we look at them, the bigger they become. Over time, they'll come to seem insurmountable and overwhelming.

But, if we fix our eyes on Jesus, our problems will shrink. We'll be able to join Paul in calling them "light and momentary." Whatever we choose to focus on is what will grow bigger. So, when we fix our eyes on Jesus, instead of our problems, He grows bigger and our troubles grow smaller.

So, I leave you with the question I started with: Where are your eyes fixed?

Are they fixed on Jesus? Or are they fixed on your problems?

Do you need to change where they are fixed?