Focusing on the Eternal

Here’s where I was convicted recently. I’ve been contemplating a lot the role of social media and how we feel, and I truly think it plays a huge part in depression and anxiety in our society today.  

I’ve been convicted about how much time I mindlessly scroll or even post for my business or author page. And as I contemplated this, I thought about my struggles with looks lately.  

My constant battle to come back to who I am in Christ instead of who I look like in the mirror or who and what others think about when they look at me. The time I put into those thoughts and then the time that’s put into “fixing” my looks. Which used to be hours of exercise or gym time, weighing food and measuring food.  

And though I don’t work out excessively anymore because actually my body can’t handle it, I can waste time on my looks in other ways. And this is where the conviction came.  

I can spend hours a week when you add up the time planning out what supplements to buy or what food to fix or looking in the mirror and tearing myself down. Fixing my makeup and refining my makeup and my hair. When I add all that time up how does that compare to the time I spend with God?  

Did that just hit you where it hurts? Because it hit me where it hurt. Major conviction.  

We can overdo anything. Whether it’s obsessively listening to videos about getting healthy or anything else like working out at the gym for two hours a day. Is God calling us to do it or are we doing it for our own gain? I am all for taking care of the body God gave us, but I know personally, I can take everything too far.  

We can do our best to take care of the body God‘s given us but He’s already numbered our days. I want to take care of the body so I can do what He’s called me to do while I’m here, but I’m not going change the timeline of my life because He’s already written it out.  

So I placed on my mirror the verse:

Now, every time I look in my bedroom mirror, I am reminded:  

1. What is most important is what I develop inside by drawing close to God, and allowing Him to shine through me. Giving me His heart.
2. I may not be “happy” with how I outwardly “look”, but am I going to allow Satan to use that to derail my day and the work God has for me?

  I think in our society, this will be a battle we will all face over and over again. We are human, and we have to call on Jesus every time we are tempted, and this temptation to focus on what we look like and what people think of us and our looks is the temptation we must continually lay at his feet.  

Come back before Him, and ask for forgiveness for taking the eye off the prize, for putting the idol of appearance above God’s ultimate desire, and coming back and drawing close.

Spending time with the One who has the power to change the world. Taking the time we would waste on temporal things spending it with the One who affects  eternity.  

Father God,
Today, once again, I ask You forgive me for the sins of the flesh and my focus on the outward. For putting others thoughts above Your thoughts of me. Help me draw close to You and stay close to You. Help me use my time wisely and continue to convict me when I’m spending more time on the temporal than with You and the eternal. I love You and I ask all this in Jesus’ name,
Amen  

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