Thank you!

In case you wonder if your comments matter - they do!  This morning I'm facing a pretty challenging day with challenging decisions.  One of the comments took me back to re-read something I wrote in early September that was just what I needed to hear today!

It is far too easy for me to slip into worry and focus on challenges, and this morning I particularly needed the reminder to be aware of the focus of my attention.  This goes along with a verse my husband shared yesterday during our devotional time.  It is found in Luke 11: 33-36

"No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you." NIV

As I often do, I started looking up words in Strong's Concordance to get a better picture of what was being said here: 

• Eye = the eye, literally or figuratively, from a word meaning "to gaze" ("with wide-open eyes, as at something remarkable").  By implication it means "vision".
• Good = literally means "folded together" or "single". Figuratively it means "clear"
• Full of light = "well-illuminated"
• Bad = hurtful (in effect or influence rather than essential character), figuratively calamitous or diseased
• Full of darkness = "opaque"
• Full of light (2nd time) = from a word meaning to shine or make manifest, the word refers to luminousness (in the widest application, natural or artificial, abstract or concrete, literal or figurative)
• Darkness (2nd time) = Shadiness or obscurity (literally or figuratively)

As I thought about all this, the picture that emerged for me was the difference between one who has eyes that are able to focus clearly, and eyes that don't track properly giving double or blurry vision, or that have "blind spots" so the whole image is less clear and more opaque.  The application for me this morning is that only if I'm seeing clearly can I make good decisions.  If I'm seeing poorly, my decisions will likely be poor as well.  So, what I want is to have my vision "folded together" with God's vision for me - that my vision is tightly bound to His will for me so I can see clearly with "single" rather than "double" vision.

Father, please make it so.  Only you are able to work in me both to will and to do of your good pleasure, and I ask that you do so now.  May we see as you see and may our decisions be fully in alignment with your will, I pray.  And I thank you for the many promises that you hear and answer our prayers, Father.  And once again, today, I stop and shout praises for the way you keep everything running right!  Thank you, Father!