Psalm 25:15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net
How do you see the world? Well, we would say that you hear with your ears, speak with your mouth, and see with your…brain. You do see through your eyes, but you see with your brain. The fact is, all your sensations are processed in your mind, what you turn your mind toward. That is why many times I’ll be travelling, listening to a podcast, and literally 45 minutes to an hour later I will kind of wake up and think, “Where am I?” The countryside has been going by my eyesight for a solid hour, but mind’s eye has been in a completely different place, the subject of the podcast.
Oftentimes you will see a young couple deeply in love. The world is imploding around them. It is time to go on to the next thing, but they are totally oblivious because all they see is what is in their mind’s eye, what their mind is directed toward. You will see what you look at. I am not talking primarily about that to which your eyes are directed, but that to which your mind is directed. In Psalm 25 we are reminded that we can look a couple of different ways.
First, you can look back. David says in Psalm 25:6-7, “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies…remember not the sins of my youth.” One of the settings of this psalm is sins of the past. Judgment had come and he was asking for forgiveness. You can look back and oftentimes that is failure. Even if it is good things to which you are looking back, it is the wrong focus. We ought to take lessons and courage from the past, but looking back is looking in the wrong direction. You can’t steer a car when you are looking in the rearview mirror.
Second, you can look forward. Oftentimes that is fear. Verses 4-5 say, “Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach my thy paths. Lead me in thy truth.” Again, there are other verses in this psalm that essentially have the same prayer. So, David is looking forward and there is some fear because of the past perhaps, and also because of the unknown nature of the future.
You can look back; you can look forward, or you can look up. That is what David chose to do in Psalm 25. Verse 15 says, “Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.” You can look up. Whatever your past, whatever your future, look up. Verse 18 says, “Look upon mine affliction.” So, God looks on our trouble as we look to His strength. Psalm 123:2 says, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.” Many are the times where I have felt eyes, not on the back of my head, but on the bottom of my chin. I look down, and there is my dog looking at me with those large adoring eyes, looking for something she needs that I can give. She is looking to me for what she needs. God is the one to whom we should look.
Psalm 5:3 says, “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” In what direction are you looking today? Many times, you wake up in the morning and there is a vague sense of foreboding, maybe anger, fear, sadness, or dread, and you think, “What am I sad about?” Then-wham-you remember what it is about which you were worried. Cultivate an awareness of God, and look toward Him. “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul,” is what the psalmist said. You will see what you look at, and that is how you will see the world. God looks on our trouble as we look to His strength. So, look to Him today.