Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Corrective Lenses?

Remember yesterday's blog about self focused North Americans who need to learn to be God focused, other centered people? I always chuckle at how God (some may say happenstance) works. I've been doing the Daniel Fast and the Day 10 devotional ties in so well with what I was sharing yesterday that I want to share a bit of it with you.

Kristen, the author, talks about waking up with a headache and getting the woe-is-me's...tunnel vision. When she opens her Bible to I John 4:11-12 she reads:
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Her headache does not go away immediately. But she begins to think about the fact that God's love is not given purely for our own enjoyment. It is meant to be shared with those around us. Her headache has given her tunnel vision - which in medical terms means a loss of peripheral or side vision. This tunnel vision kept her focused only on her own needs and blocked out the needs of those around her. Looking to God in reading His Word made her realize that it was impossible for her to love others when she couldn't even see them because of her tunnel vision.

This takes me back to one of ">yesterday's quotes: Focus on God trusting Him to meet your needs, then peripheral vision returns enabling you to love others in the midst of whatever you are going through..

To echo Kristen's prayer in the devotional:

"Father, it is easy to get so wrapped up my my own life that I become oblivious to the needs of the people around me. Help me to humble myself so that I can share your life-changing love."

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