WHERE YOUR EYES ARE

Hello,

How are you? Hope you're doing fine?

Welcome to today's gist. 

I was thinking on something that happened in the Bible and I just thought to share my thoughts. 

So one day, in Matthew 14, Jesus heard about the death of His cousin John, He went off to a lonely place, presumably to grieve. But people got info about where He was and went in their numbers to meet Him. After a while, Jesus was moved to compassion by the people's hunger and He asked His disciples what could be done for them. His disciples said they didn't know what to do and all they had were five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus collects the bread and fish, and instructs His disciples to get the people to sit down; He gives thanks to God and asks the disciples to distribute among the people. The disciples begin to share and surprisingly the bread and fish becomes enough to go round with enough leftovers to fill 12 baskets. This was such a wonderful display of Jesus power and something that would probably have remained on the tongues of people for a while.  

A while later, in Matthew 15, Jesus is once again moved to compassion on behalf of the crowd who have come to Him and were hungry. He, again, asks His disciples what could be done for the hungry crowd.

 

And here's where it gets interesting for me: these men, the very same disciples who had watched Jesus turn five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed thousands of people, are still as lost as they were the first time they had this conversation with Jesus, saying they didn't have enough food to feed the crowd. When I read that portion of Scripture, the first thought that came to my mind was "no be for your front dem give people food? How una dey take feed those other people that time wey you no go through that route this time around?" 

And of course God asked me how different I was from these men I was chastising. You see God is always in the business of coming through for His people and showing up for us in really marvellous ways. Sometimes there are things God does for me that make me feel like "e no fit pass like this! E no get wetin God wey do this one for me no go do for me!" And that's all good until one day I'm facing some serious challenge. 

Most times I find that all my memory becomes shortened; the thing I'm going through makes me forget the awesome God that I have who is able to come through for me, my eyes become so focused on my problems that God is relegated to the back burner. All of a sudden, I cannot remember the things that God has done for me, or cannot realize that the God that did those things for me is still alive and able to handle my present situation too. 

As tempted as you would get to look at, and focus on, the problems you're facing, my encouragement to you today is to make the conscious effort to fix your eyes on Jesus instead. Remember who He is, refuse to forget all that He has done and let that knowledge strengthen your confidence in His ability to come through for you in your present circumstance. Let your eyes be trained on Jesus because when you focus on Him, all your problems pale in comparison.

Keep your eyes on Jesus! Remember all that He's done for you.

See you next week!

Love,

Achenyo.