Matthew 6:22-23
“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
This morning, I awoke in darkness, even though the sun had been up for more than an hour. We have room darkening drapery and blinds on one side of our bedroom…and a dark, windowless hallway just outside the other. So even on the sunniest day, there is darkness until the door is opened to the rest of our house…which is virtually walled in windows. Then the light comes flooding in and fills ups every nook and cranny!
When I was a young teenager, I loved to keep the curtains drawn tightly for much of the morning in summer. It was as if as long as the light and the “outside world” were not visible, we didn’t have to start our day. We could laze in pajamas, drain the last cups of coffee from my dad’s percolator, and pretend that we didn’t have anything we had to do all day. My mother was attending college classes at a university some 40 miles away and didn’t return home until after noon, so we would piddle around until about an hour before she arrived, then scramble like “Samantha” on the TV sitcom “Bewitched” to get the kitchen cleaned, beds made, and all of our other chores done…and yes, open the curtains!
We like the darkness when we are trying to sleep or be lazy for a day. But too many of us choose to stay in the dark much of the time. We either try to shut out the outside world…or we squint to see things as we wish them to be, rather than review them in the bright light of truth. It seems to me that lately there has been a lot of “squinting” and “curtain pulling” in our country, as people try to put their own “spin” on how things are…or how they want them to be.
The time has come to open the blinds…and open our eyes. We need to trust God to handle everything that is happening to us…to seek His will and believe that He truly knows best…and we need to demonstrate this to others. No more hand wringing…no more “trash talk” and berating of one another…no more picking and choosing what to believe or support based on our own agendas and desires – or because it just “feels good.” The time has come to fill our bodies with the Light of Christ…and act like it!
I will be the first to admit that I have had my moments where the issue wasn’t that I didn’t trust God…but I got caught up in the negativity and “gloom and doom” despair that seems to be a pervading attitude among many. My sweet husband reminded me this morning that we are “glass half full” people. God gave him words of encouragement and logic to speak to me that were a reminder of WHO is in charge…and how blessed we are because of Jesus.
So I am challenging each of us to get out from under the covers, pull back the curtains, and open our eyes to the bright light of Jesus Christ. Let’s trust Him to do what only He can and embrace the wonderful, amazing, abundant life that He offers each of us. And let’s begin today!
©2016 Debbie Robus
“Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
This morning, I awoke in darkness, even though the sun had been up for more than an hour. We have room darkening drapery and blinds on one side of our bedroom…and a dark, windowless hallway just outside the other. So even on the sunniest day, there is darkness until the door is opened to the rest of our house…which is virtually walled in windows. Then the light comes flooding in and fills ups every nook and cranny!
When I was a young teenager, I loved to keep the curtains drawn tightly for much of the morning in summer. It was as if as long as the light and the “outside world” were not visible, we didn’t have to start our day. We could laze in pajamas, drain the last cups of coffee from my dad’s percolator, and pretend that we didn’t have anything we had to do all day. My mother was attending college classes at a university some 40 miles away and didn’t return home until after noon, so we would piddle around until about an hour before she arrived, then scramble like “Samantha” on the TV sitcom “Bewitched” to get the kitchen cleaned, beds made, and all of our other chores done…and yes, open the curtains!
We like the darkness when we are trying to sleep or be lazy for a day. But too many of us choose to stay in the dark much of the time. We either try to shut out the outside world…or we squint to see things as we wish them to be, rather than review them in the bright light of truth. It seems to me that lately there has been a lot of “squinting” and “curtain pulling” in our country, as people try to put their own “spin” on how things are…or how they want them to be.
The time has come to open the blinds…and open our eyes. We need to trust God to handle everything that is happening to us…to seek His will and believe that He truly knows best…and we need to demonstrate this to others. No more hand wringing…no more “trash talk” and berating of one another…no more picking and choosing what to believe or support based on our own agendas and desires – or because it just “feels good.” The time has come to fill our bodies with the Light of Christ…and act like it!
I will be the first to admit that I have had my moments where the issue wasn’t that I didn’t trust God…but I got caught up in the negativity and “gloom and doom” despair that seems to be a pervading attitude among many. My sweet husband reminded me this morning that we are “glass half full” people. God gave him words of encouragement and logic to speak to me that were a reminder of WHO is in charge…and how blessed we are because of Jesus.
So I am challenging each of us to get out from under the covers, pull back the curtains, and open our eyes to the bright light of Jesus Christ. Let’s trust Him to do what only He can and embrace the wonderful, amazing, abundant life that He offers each of us. And let’s begin today!
©2016 Debbie Robus
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