On What Are You Fixing Your Gaze?

Perseverate - to repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased.  To extend focus past the point of productivity.  

To ignore the evil in the world is a form of denial no less destructive than the opposite extreme: to perseverate on it.
 
Our 24/7 news cycle and its nearly instantaneous flow of information in real time is the perfect storm for perseveration.  Packaged for the express purpose of captivating — and maintaining — attention, the barrage of media assaults our senses without reprieve.  

Until we shut it off.  

So what then is a person of conscience to do?  

The answer, I believe, is found in pondering these two passages in tandem:

Matthew 6:22-34 (NASB)
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  23 “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  24  “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.  25  “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  26  “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?   27  “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?   28  “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,  29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.  30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!  31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’  32  “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  33  “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  34  “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  

Philippians 4:8-9 (NASB)
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

What we look upon matters.  Not in so far as how Father sees us or anything akin to that sort of legalistic foolishness, but as it relates to our emotional wellness and sanity.  As we set our gaze upon righteousness, peace, and joy, the awareness thereof floods our innermost being, leaving a harvest of that very same righteousness, peace, and joy in its wake.   

If we focus on what is wrong, our awareness of evil will cloud our reasoning and distort our perception, the consequence of which will be a sense of hopelessness, fear, and confusion.  But if we direct our eyes to what is enduringly TRUE, the evil we inevitably encounter can be rightly seen for what it truly is: a temporal lie.

What we fixate on multiplies — and magnifies — in our lives. 

Which begs the question: on what are you fixing your gaze? 

noexceptionsministries.org 

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