A Change of Focus
Psalm 119:37-40 Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, which is for those who fear you. Turn away the disgrace that I dread, for your ordinances are good. See, I have longed for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life.
In our lives on this earth, you and I, we’re prone to trusting in things that we can see. It’s only natural. We live in a physical world, so trust in physical things.
We know, for instance, that tonight the sun will set, and in the morning it will rise again. We trust in relationships. We trust in our circumstances, good or bad. We trust in our pay packet and our bank balance. And to a point that’s as it should be … to a point. Up until the point where we trust in those things above and beyond who God is and what He says He’ll do.
At that point, we’ve started trusting our lives in things that aren’t worthy of that level of trust.
If you have a share portfolio that’s worth a certain amount of money, hey, the market could plummet tomorrow. The same is true of every other physical thing on this earth – they can give way in an instant. And so often, we’re caught out, because we’ve placed our trust in the wrong things.
That’s why we need God’s help, His intensely practical help, to get our hearts focussed on the right things:
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, which is for those who fear you. Turn away the disgrace that I dread, for your ordinances are good. See, I have longed for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life. (Psalm 119:37-40)
So here the Psalmist is asking God to turn his eyes away from all those vanities, all those false idols in which we place our trust. What idols are you trusting in at the moment? In what vanities have you placed your trust? Hmm?
Father God turn my eyes from looking at those vanities and give me life in your ways – literally, give me living energy to pursue the way marked out by You o God. That’s it! That’s what I need, that’s what you need. Living energy. Holy Spirit energy, to head God’s way, to trust God to lead us forward, rather than placing our hope in false idols.
God’s promises are true. Those false idols, ultimately they’ll lead to disgrace. But God’s promises will never fail.
God I’ve seen that your ways are good. I long for your ways. Lead me in them. Give me life.
What a great prayer. What a powerful way to get a change of heart. Try as we might, we can’t change our hearts for ourselves. But God’s living energy, the power of His Word, the power of His Spirit – that’s where we get a change of heart. That’s where we get a change of focus.
God doesn’t want you to continue trusting in idols, dreading the disgrace that they will ultimately bring. He wants to shift your focus, transform your heart, with His living energy.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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