Fix it

 I'm almost 47. I've always said age is relative because I have friends of all ages and I like that.  But my eyes and cellulite don't agree. I just bought my first pair of readers. Seriously, woke up one day and everything close to my face was a blur. I rubbed my eyes and they laughed, "sister, this is as good as it gets". I already have to put my phone on speaker because I can't hear so why not just change my text size to large print? 

Funny how God can take something like my inability to focus my eyes to jolt my perspective and focus on all sorts of things. For months now I've been somewhat fixed on the word "fix". Fix your eyes. Fix your heart. Fix your thoughts. Fix your attitude. Fix your tone. Fix your hair. Fix as in focus, and fix as in repair. Then there's "fix" like my McDonalds Diet Coke fix. Haha! Ok maybe that fix needs to be fixed. But so many definitions to the word have got my wheels turning and my heart listening to the spirit.

The Bible is full of verses telling us to fix oursleves: 

Proverbs 4:25
Set your gaze on the path before you. With fixed purpose, looking straight ahead, ignore life’s distractions.

Romans 7:25
... but now my renewed mind is fixed on and submitted to God’s righteous principles.

Philippians 4:8
Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always.

Psalm 37:3
Keep trusting in the Lord and do what is right in his eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God, and you will dwell in the land, feasting on his faithfulness. 

Did you know that God makes over seven thousand promises to us throughout scripture? The hard part about promises and the hard part about fixing our eyes undistracted on Jesus is that in order to do that we have to fully trust him.  We have the most adorable video of Caleb when he was learning to walk. My arms are stretched out for him to reach for. He's not moving forward unless he knows I will catch him, and he will certainly fall if he starts looking around and takes his eyes off of me. Much like Peter when he walked on the water with Jesus.  He trusted Jesus so he jumped right out of the boat, eyes on Jesus, he was stinking walking on water! But as soon as he focused on the storm around him he began to sink. Or like a snow storm or down pour while you’re  driving...If your eyes focus on the snow coming at your windshield your eyes cross and you lose ability to see the path you're supposed to stay on.

The thing is if we don't trust God we have trouble keeping our eyes focused on him. I trust God because he's proven over and over that His plan is better than mine. I still struggle to trust sometimes, but it's so good to remember when I have trusted him that peace moves in and crowds out fear or the pit in my gut. So to my friends who haven't trusted God enough to experience his goodness, to see in the moment that God's way is actually even better I have a couple of really cool thoughts:

This dawned on me as I was listening to an Easter message a couple of weeks ago:  The disciples scattered and hid when Jesus was arrested in the garden.  Peter swore at a young girl who thought he looked familiar. He denied even knowing Jesus.  After Jesus died on the cross the disciples basically hid together in fear.  BUT after Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death he appeared to them in his physical body and talked to them.  They were astonished, but also suddenly free of fear.  They now knew they could trust Jesus because they saw with their own eyes that he is who he says he is and his promises are the real deal.  They were freed in that moment of fear to the degree that most of them ended up giving their life in martyrdom for the sake of spreading the news that Jesus is who he says he is, His promises are trustworthy and he is trustworthy.

"If God is holy, then he can't sin.  If God can't sin, then he can't sin against me. If he can't sin against me, shouldn't that make him the most trustworthy being there is?"-Jackie Hill Perry. UM, yes! My daughters know their enneagram number, and all that goes with that.  I've taken the test and don't even remember what I landed on.  But we were talking about it and they all were like, "oh! you have to be a six!".  Naive  me: "Why? What's a six?". "Defiant, Rebellious and suspicious of people." Nice. That's what I want to be.  If I'm honest, it's all true though.  I'm all of that, but the suspicion of people comes from being hurt by people so it takes time for me to really trust.  But to have someone who has never sinned against me or against anyone for that matter...I'm in.  I trust Him!  Not only that, I surrender to him.  I'd like him to be in charge of my life.

“But what good is declaring ‘I surrender all,’ if I’m stubbornly digging my heels in and running back to my camp whenever the parables and stories are indictments against me and my worldview? As we’re living this messy life, with humanity’s brokenness abounding by the headline and social media post, we have a responsibility to assess: where am I, and where is God? In doing so, our prayers should become like the opening of the powerful hymn: 'Be THOU my vision O Lord of my heart.' God, show us.”-EJ Gaines

So we can trust.  In a world where people are hard to trust and what we know to be true is constantly being redefined by the culture of "what feels good and right is true" we can turn our eyes away from the chaos of that sinking destructive way of thinking and fasten our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our perspective, our way of living, our opinions, our hurts, our everything to a loving, trustworthy Father. 

When heavy feelings, emotions and bad news try to set up camp in my heart and mind, when they try saying they are in charge here- I have to dig deeper.  I have to dig below that heavy feeling and in surrendering it to God say, "I'm fixing my eyes on Jesus so he can fix my mind, so he can fix my heart and so he can fix my perspective." God is the healer/fixer of my broken life.  I just need to keep fixing my eyes on him.