Matthew 6:22,23 The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
I love road trips and I love driving. The problem however, is that I like to enjoy the scenery as I drive. So, much to my wife’s terror, as I turn my head from side to side, taking it all in, I (apparently) turn the wheel from side to side. Where my eyes go, my body (and the car) follows.
So it is with my life, Jesus says. Where my eyes look, my life follows. If I am focused on my career, that is what my life will be about. If I am focused on self, I will pursue my own desires and if I am focused on God, I will pursue him.
I daily decide, whether or not it is a conscious choice, to focus on something. If I do not choose purposefully, I will almost always choose self. My default setting is to turn my eyes to me. If I do not set my alarm for 5:45AM to spend time with God, it does not happen.
If I do not start out my day, pointing myself towards God, focusing my gaze on him, I look to self. In my destruction, I realized that my life needed to change radically. I had been pursuing self for so long that it just became normal.
Jesus says this is not to be so. If I follow the light, my life will be full of light, but if I follow the darkness, predictable results will ensue. Thus, I have to begin my day taking whatever time I need to turn my eyes, my mind and my life towards God.
As I go through the day, I need to be ruthlessly aware of those things that distract. Like Peter, walking on the water of life, the wind and waves are constantly seducing my eyes away from Christ. It is mine to keep my gaze on the one who keeps me from sinking into the waters of life. The secret is to realize that anything that is not Christ is wind and waves. This does not mean that I do not engage the world, do my job or interact with my family. It just means that I learn to do it all with my life pointed at God.
There are pursuits that are compatible with keeping my eyes on God and there are pursuits that are not. I can do my job, spend time with my family and love my neighbor, all with my eyes on God. I cannot however, look to the destructive desires of my flesh, while keeping my gaze on him. I cannot look at pornography and expect that my life will be filled with light. I cannot indulge my appetite for drugs, bitterness, anger, affirmation and greed without turning my gaze from God.
Turning my gaze to Christ does not change the wind and the waves around me but it much improves my position in relation to them. If I find myself sinking into the darkness of life, it is my responsibility to look to the light.