Focusing My Eyes

  “Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite.

This too is meaningless,

 a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 6:9 (NIV)

 

Confession time: there are days when I do major battle with greener grass. Not on my lawn but in my life. Please understand that I know what I have been given and I realize that God has truly blessed me. 

Unfortunately, there are times when I allow my focus to shift to what someone else has, and I find myself thinking “If only I could look like that or write like her or have more money in the bank like they do, THEN I would be happy or fulfilled or content or . . . fill in the blank.”

I was having one of those “if only” days when I came across an article titled “What Stars Think of Themselves” and it totally surprised me. All the stars mentioned in the article are extremely successful, wealthy, and beautiful by anyone’s standards. The world says they “have it all” but oddly enough, the stars themselves have a different opinion.

Meryl Streep said that she had no self-confidence in her ability to act; Mike Myers was certain that the “no-talent police” would come to arrest him one day. Michelle Pfeiffer shared that she thought she had the “face of a duck” and Angelina Jolie offered this: “Sometimes I think I look like a funny Muppet.” The very ones that I looked at and thought “Oh to be like you” were themselves feeling that their lives did not compare to people around them.

Solomon addresses this very issue in Ecclesiastes 6:9 (NIV). He says “Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Instead of longing to be more like someone else, I should be focusing on “what the eye sees” – in other words, on what I am already blessed with rather than “the roving of the appetite” – what someone else has.

Solomon wisely states that always looking somewhere else for what I perceive as better than what I have is as foolish as chasing after the wind. I’m never going to catch it, no matter how hard I try.

I have been blessed with a Godly husband, three beautiful children, and six even more beautiful grandchildren. I have a home to live in, blankets to keep me warm, and food in my pantry. I have laundry to wash and floors to sweep. I can read my Bible and pray to my Father any time I choose without having to ask permission from anyone.

A roving appetite will never be satisfied. But focusing my eyes on what I am blessed with will satisfy for a lifetime.

 Father, thank you for blessings beyond belief. I choose to praise you and not focus anywhere else but on your face. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

R.A.P. it up . . . 

Reflect

• Do you find yourself with a case of the “if only” very often?

 

• What causes your focus to turn from the Lord and what He has blessed you with to other people and what they have?

Apply

• Journal a list of all your blessings in your life, from the tiniest blessing to the biggest.

 

• Now determine if you would give up any of those blessings in exchange for something that someone else has. Thank the Lord for His gifts to you.

Power 

• Ecclesiastes 6:9 (NIV) “Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

• Proverbs 14:30 (NIV) “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”

 

• Colossians 3:2 (NIV) “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”