I’m not sure when this verse became my life verse, but I’ve adopted it. These words speak of what’s at the center of my heart. There is one word that jumps out to me in this verse… the word gaze. The word gaze means to look steadily and intently. The opposite of the word gaze would be to glance. The word glance means to look quickly or briefly. Let’s think about these two words in relation to our unwanted circumstances and God. I believe we often gaze at our circumstances and glance at God. In other words, we focus our attention on what’s troubling us, while giving God only a glance.
Yet, this is not what the Bible tells us to do. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:18: “So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.” And the writer of Hebrews says that we are “to run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Here’s the thing… when we gaze at our circumstances and only glance at God, our problems grow and frustrations develop. But when we glance at our circumstances and gaze at God, we find hope, joy, and strength that will carry us through.
Trials, struggles, and unwanted circumstances are inevitable. But while we cannot get around them, the Word of God tells us what we need to do in them. GAZE AT GOD. To gaze at God means that I always turn to Him in prayer, laying all these things at His feet. It means that I feast on what His Word tells me… who I am, what I’ve been given, and my future inheritance. God’s Word tells me that I have a “great treasure inside of me” (2 Corinthians 4:7); “my present troubles are small and won’t last forever” (2 Corinthians 4:17); my troubles “produce a glory that vastly outweighs them” (2 Corinthians 4:17); the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives inside me (Romans 8:11); wisdom is just a prayer away (James 1:5); and that “God blesses those who patiently endure” (James 1:12). By gazing, our God gets so much bigger and our problems get so much smaller.
So in relation to God, let’s become gazers, not glancers. Whatever is bothering you today, whatever has gotten you down, or however insurmountable your struggles are, make sure to only glance at your difficulties, but gaze at God. Let’s begin today.