Spend a little time with Him and you’ll dust off your soul. The duster will start to move away the film of everyday life. Spend more time with Him you’ll see the dust begin to disappear, you’ll feel His presence begin to move away the spirit of fear. Seek Him everyday and dwell in His ways? Your soul will sparkle with the beauty of His love and Grace. Kathy King
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
Oh soul, are you weary and troubled? Does it seem like darkness has sunk in every small space of your life? There are times I feel that way. Recently a friend of mine came by to visit for a little while. We’ve known each other for quite some time, we reminisced about growing up in the church and the old hymns that we sang every week. You could say that we cut our teeth on 4 part harmony with the timeless words that were written in those stanzas. After she left one particular hymn came to mind. Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. You don’t really hear it sung in a worship band. To me, the words in the hymn reflects both God’s desire to walk with us and impart our need for reverential fear for the creator of the universe. Not the sloppy wet kisses that we hear in lyrics today. I’m not kidding, that was a verse in a worship chorus last week. At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy, I am going to say it. The old hymns grant us a picture of a balance of life’s ups and downs in our lives. They approach God with love, friendship and holy fear that encompasses our need for the creator.
What is the history of this hymn?
The hymn was written by Helen Lemmel, she was physically blind when she wrote the hymn, yet she wrote about turning her eyes towards Jesus. Lemmel was married to a wealthy man, an accomplished musician and writer with great success. In her later years she became blind, her husband was unable to cope with her illness and left her. I can’t imagine her pain. Yet she continued to write hymns. When I dug a little deeper, I found a writing by a missionary named Lilias Trotter. She served in Algeria in the early 1900’s. She wrote many parables, one of which I would like to share with you.
“Focussed: A Story and a Song” by Lilias Trotter
It was in a little wood in early morning. The sun was climbing behind a steep cliff in the east, and its light was flooding nearer and nearer and then making pools among the trees. Suddenly, from a dark corner of purple brown stems and tawny moss, there shone out a great golden star. It was just a dandelion, and half withered—but it was full face to the sun, and had caught into its heart all the glory it could hold, and was shining so radiantly that the dew that lay on it still made a perfect aureole round its head. And it seemed to talk, standing there—to talk about the possibility of making the very best of these lives of ours.
For if the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon our hearts, there is an ocean of grace and love and power lying all around us, an ocean to which all earthly light is but a drop, and it is ready to transfigure us, as the sunshine transfigured the dandelion, and on the same condition—that we stand full face to God.
Gathered up, focussed lives, intent on one aim—Christ—these are the lives on which God can concentrate blessedness. It is “all for all” by a law as unvarying as any law that governs the material universe.
We see the principle shadowed in the trend of science; the telephone and the wireless in the realm of sound, the use of radium and the ultra violet rays in the realm of light. All these work by gathering into focus currents and waves that, dispersed, cannot serve us. In every branch of learning and workmanship the tendency of these days is to specialize—to take up one point and follow it to the uttermost.
And Satan knows well the power of concentration, if a soul is likely to get under the sway of the inspiration, “this one thing I do,” he will turn all his energies to bring in side-interests that will shatter the gathering intensity.
And they lie all around, these interests. Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once—art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the “good” hiding the “best” even more effectually than it could be hidden by downright frivolity with its smothered heart-ache at its own emptiness.
It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? Does this test not give the clue? Then dare to have it out with God—and after all, that is the shortest way. Dare to lay bare your whole life and being before Him, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focussed on Christ and His glory. Dare to face the fact that unfocussed good and useful as it may seem, it will prove to have failed of its purpose.
What does this focussing mean? Study the matter and you will see that it means two things—gathering in all that can be gathered, and letting the rest drop. The working of any lens—microscope, telescope, camera—will show you this. The lens of your own eye, in the room where you are sitting, as clearly as any other. Look at the window bars, and the beyond is only a shadow; look through at the distance, and it is the bars that turn into ghosts. You have to choose which you will fix your gaze upon and let the other go.
Are we ready for a cleavage to be wrought through the whole range of our lives, like the division long ago at the taking of Jericho, the division between things that could be passed through the fire of consecration into “the treasury of the Lord,” and the things that, unable to “bide the fire,” must be destroyed? All aims, all ambitions, all desires, all pursuits—shall we dare to drop them if they cannot be gathered sharply and clearly into the focus of “this one thing I do”?
Will it not make life narrow, this focusing? In a sense, it will—just as the mountain path grows narrower, for it matters more and more, the higher we go, where we set our feet—but there is always, as it narrows, a wider and wider outlook and purer, clearer air. Narrow as Christ’s life was narrow, this is our aim; narrow as regards self-seeking, broad as the love of God to all around. Is there anything to fear in that?
And in the narrowing and focussing, the channel will be prepared for God’s power—like the stream hemmed between the rockbeds, that wells up in a spring—like the burning glass that gathers the rays into an intensity that will kindle fire. It is worth while to let God see what He can do with these lives of ours, when “to live is Christ.”
How do we bring things to a focus in the world of optics? Not by looking at the things to be dropped, but by looking at the one point that is to be brought out.
Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him, and the Divine “attrait” by which God’s saints are made, even in this 20th century, will lay hold of you. For “He is worthy” to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has died to win.”
Profound words from long ago still speak today
As I read this musing, my eyes filled with tears. Concentration, business, life in all of its fast paced movement was communicated in this parable. King Solomon was right, there is nothing new under the sun. Our times are only a little different. The enemy is trying to keep us distracted with the woes and cares of life. We also have that little box of technology that we carry with us everywhere that makes our minds unable to focus for extended periods of time. It’s time to ask ourselves this question: Can I put down my worries, fears and phone and turn my eyes to Jesus? We all are influenced by different spirits in this world. Why does the Scripture tell us that God has not given us a spirit of fear? He also does not give us confusion and unrest. Those spirits are in the realm of the forever loser, Satan. He wants to keep you scrolling, arguing and hating one another. God beckons us to walk with Him in His peace that passes all understanding.
God wants us to get to know Him
It is my sincere hope and prayer that you find yourself turning your eyes towards Jesus. Walk with Him, spend time with Him and get to know Him. He is only a prayer away. Seek Godly counsel, He beckons you each day. If you’d like to hear the hymn the link can be found here. God Bless you all dear readers.
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