What do you see, really?

You've heard the sayings virtually everywhere, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear and even appearances aren't everything. Then why is it when we view things through our own eyes do we see things differently? Take for example many times, our own lying eyes. Each time we look at ourselves, what do we really see?

More times than not, we see flaws, imperfections, irregularities and every little thing wrong with us. Why don't we see what others see? Are we too judgmental on ourselves? Is our vision flawed? How can we change what we view?

Perhaps most of those questions very easily will be answered when we arrive in our eternal destination, the home we were meant to have, heaven, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. When sin entered this world through disobedience to God, our visions were forever altered. We had a profound difference of what was wrong with things, why certain things aren't good enough, and why we will never ever be truly content.

I often wonder what does God see when looking at us, when we are viewing ourselves in our mirrors? Does He see things are they truly are or does He see what the world sees? Why can't we then, learn to ask God through prayer to see things through His eyes? To stop judging what we can't see and accept things the way they are in love through God's eyes. This is my new prayer and I am hoping it will change a lot of things. I am praying it will change my heart and keep me from judging people based on what I see instead of what I know. I am praying it will lead me to look on people in unconditional love instead of what I perceive to be the truth.

I am praying that many others will have the scales removed from their eyes and we will begin to see this world for what it truly is, God's creation and so is everything in it. Let's put aside our differences and bind the enemy who would see to show us other views than the one God would like us to see. We need to remove the blinders that most of us have willingly let this world put on us, and start seeing the hurting, the needy, the hopeless, and give them help, provide for their needs and restore their hope. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ.

For some people no matter what you say will not make a difference to them until they can SEE things for themselves and for some, we may be the only version of the Bible that they will ever know. Let's make sure the message is perfectly clear. (Oh, and by the way, the picture on the top is sand, magnified 250 times, interesting what really is in what we think we see!)

Time To Focus

Imagine one day your driving on a highway, minding your own business, admiring the beautiful sky in front of you. You're keeping up with traffic and then, out of the corner of your eye, you see a big, naked, ugly, hairy man running on the side of the road giving everyone the thumbs up. You can't take your eyes off this crazy guy and in the process your car veers into the next lane and you get into an accident with someone who was so shocked by the big hairy guy that she didn't know what to do either.

Sin is the big, hairy, ugly, naked guy. We have a tendency to focus more on the sin in our lives than on God, the Giver of love and life. What happens when we shift our focus?

We crash.

We were not created to be flawed creatures. We were called by God to greatness. We spend too much of our time focusing on how vile human beings are. We need to shift that focus. I'm not saying to ignore sin, but when you focus on something you become that thing. If I focus my mind on the idea that I am a loser, I will become a loser. If I focus on becoming a great student, I will become a great student.

Here's another great example:

In 1843, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, published a short story called "The Birthmark". At the center of this tale is a beautiful young woman with a tiny hand-shaped birthmark on her face. She is the talk of the town, praised for her beauty and desired by many.

There is one young man, a scientist, who falls for the gorgeous young woman, courts her, and eventually marries her. After their wedding, the young man becomes obsessed with his wife's birthmark and as the days wear on he begins to see her as ugly, a perfect being marred by this hideous defect. Soon the young woman buys into her husband's opinion and considers herself an abomination.

The young scientist decides he can create a way to get rid of the mark and make this near-perfect creature perfect. He gives her a potion to drink. She drinks and the mark fades. The young man has gained what he has always wanted perfection.

Minutes later his wife dies and his moment of perfection, the love of his life, is lost forever.

Each of us has a birthmark. This mark is very real and can be very dangerous, but over the last two thousand years the focus has been less on the beauty of the creation and more on the defect.

What we have done to ourselves is like a person who owns a beautiful diamond but focuses only on the tiny scratch deep within. There are few perfect diamonds in the world. Each has a flaw. We have spent the whole of human history focusing not on the radiance of the diamond, but obsessing on the blemish. Instead of focusing on love and forgiveness, we've nursed anger and hatred.

God created us to be greater than the angels! Greater than the angels!! We slipped and fell and scratched ourselves. The cut, the bleeding, however does not change our original nature. Instead the enemy had shifted our focus ever so slightly away from the forgiving beauty of God to depravity. If we become what we focus on, then we as human beings have become everything we were never intended to be.

Isn't it time to change our focus and see ourselves like God does? Isn't it time to focus on the beauty of the diamond instead of the small scratch, no one sees it but us. Let's change our focus.

Join me in the 30 day challenge to add 15 minutes of prayer, praise, meditation and worship to our day and see what life changes will happen. Simply leave a comment and let me know that you completed your 15 minutes today, and then update us if anything amazing happened in your day. Perhaps it was a sense of peace you had, or overwhelming joy despite what was going on. Share with us every day and let it inspire others to join in. I can't wait to hear your comments. ~ Kat