Fix your eyes on Jesus

Parts of your life will be good, maybe even wonderful. Parts of your life will be bad, maybe awful. Don't fix your eyes too much on any of it. If you look too much at the good you'll get cocky. If you look too much at the bad you'll get defeated. Anyway, what's good today may be bad tomorrow, and what's bad today may be wonderful tomorrow. Nowhere does the Bible say to put your hope in life improvement; you'd spend your days in fear of disappointment. Hope in God. Fix your eyes on Him, and let Him give you what He wants to; for you it will all turn out to be good. I get such a kick out of reading the old Christian classics. The truths don't change, but the terms do. One seventeenth-century writer was commenting about people who came back to his area of Europe from visiting Peru. He says of course they brought back gold and silver, but they were also apt to bring apes and parrots -- "because they neither cost much, nor are burdensome"! (Can you believe it? I don't know, I think traveling with apes might be burdensome, but I must be a sissy.) And so, he continues, when good things happen to you, accept them like parrots and apes -- enjoy them -- "provided they don't cost [you] too much care and attention, nor involve [you] in trouble anxiety, disputes or contentions"! (I can see the possibility of apes causing anxiety.) His point is, don't let the nice things in your life distract you from fixing your eyes on Jesus. (This sage from long ago also suggests that if you really get elevated, try to accept what comes from your admirers "with prudence and discretion, accompanied by charity and suavity of manners"! Does that strike you as funny, too? Whatever good things come, don't forget to be suave!) But through the centuries God's wise ones emphasize the same thing: "fix your eyes, fix your eyes." William Law said around 1750 that everyone fixes their eyes on something; he interpreted that as "praying without ceasing." He said people pray continually as long as they're alive, because it's part of human nature. The [person] whose heart habitually tends toward the riches, honors, and powers or pleasures of this life, is in a continual state of prayer toward all these things. His spirit stands always bent towards them. They have his hope, his love, his faith, and are . . . in reality the God of his heart."1 Can't you see that whatever we think is lacking or in short supply in our life, we could easily "pray without ceasing" toward that? in a jail cell, pray without ceasing toward release in poverty, pray toward money under an oppressive government, toward freedom in loneliness, toward companionship . . . All the milling peoples of the world, each lacking something, can fix their eyes on their particular lack and be always restless, complaining, ungrateful, unhappy. I'm speaking to myself as well. In your good times, in your bad times, when life is wonderful, when life is awful -- don't fix your eyes on your life. Fix your eyes on Jesus. This was the little gen on my "Keswick calendar" recently: "Live while you live," the epicure would say, "And seize the pleasures of the present day." "Live while you live," the faithful preacher cries, "And give to God each moment as it flies." Lord, in my view, let each united be: I live in pleasure while I live for Thee.2 I'm writing more than I've attained, but it both motivates me and stabilizes me to read this other quotation from that same remarkable William Law, written also around 1750: The pious soul that eyes only God . . . can have no stop in its progress; light and darkness equally assist him. In the light he looks up to God. In the darkness he lays hold of God, and so they both do him the same good.3 ______________ 1. William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, p. 155. 2. P. Doddridge, "Keswick Calendar," Friday, December 14, 1990. 3. William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, p. 159. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prayer: O Father! I confess to You I don't yet have a deep conviction in my heart that darkness and light are equal. Lord Jesus Christ, I want to develop before You a "holy carelessness." I have a long way to go, but that phrase makes my mouth water. Teach me to be without concern concerning all that concerns me! -- knowing that I am totally in Your perfect hands. Teach me to fix my eyes on You, and to take what You give with poise and gratitude. Teach me to say with Paul, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation . . ." (Philippians 4:12). Teach me that secret, Lord Jesus. I fix my eyes on You. Amen. * * * * * Let us fix our eyes on Jesus . . . that He may cast us down, and that He may raise us up; that He may afflict us, and that He may comfort us; that He may despoil us, and that He may enrich us; that He may teach us to pray, and that He may answer our prayers; that while leaving us in the world, He may separate us from it, our life being hidden with Him in God, and our behaviour bearing witness to Him before men. --Theodore Monod, early twentieth century