My eyes turn inward, at the convolutions of my soul. They look outward at my circumstances, at the many questions the next few months will bring. My eyes turned downward, overwhelmed.
Eyes to the earth, tears beginning to overflow.
How shall I ever get through this? How can there be purpose, how can there be good in this painful struggle I am living?
The voice speaks, not audibly, but through my computer screen:
“For every look at self—take ten looks at Christ! Live near to Jesus—and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.”
~Robert Murray McCheyne, quoted by Vitamin Z
Ten at Christ for every one at self? Why there aren’t enough hours in the day to do such a thing!
You must look at yourself less.
So I’m to ignore my circumstances? I’m to ignore the intellectual, the emotional, the physical, the spiritual struggles I’m experiencing? Is that what You’re saying?
No, I’m urging you to look beyond.
“Anyone can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says. Then it says, “Look unto Me.” ‘Ay,’ said he, in broad Essex, ‘many of ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You’ll never find comfort in yourselves.’ Then the good man followed up his text in this way: ‘Look unto Me: I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hanging on the Cross. Look: I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. O, look to Me! Look to Me!‘”
“Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. He then said, ‘Young man, you look very miserable.‘ Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck. He continued: ‘And you will always be miserable — miserable in life and miserable in death — if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’
“Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ.‘ There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ.”
~C.H. Spurgeon describing his conversion, found at Wholesome Words
My soul has a dread disease. Discouragement. Discontent with God’s provision. Despair for God’s supply. Disgruntlement at God’s direction.
The serpent has bit me, I am ready to die.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”
~Numbers 21:8-9
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
~John 3:14-15
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
~Hebrews 12:2-3
Collect more quotes from throughout the week with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”.
