I have recently noticed that on the familiar drive south to my hometown in Georgia, my spirit is literally nourished by the views. Seeing rolling fields of green, rows of crops, and uninterrupted woods just resets me. I have been driving these roads now for twenty years, but until recently, I have really only focused on the destination.

As my eyes feast on God’s beautiful creation, my spirit finds rest and peace. All I am doing is driving, and looking at nature, but it changes me. My eyes are undeniably connected to my spirit. I think the Lord made us all this way. Why would a vacation spot cost more depending on the view? Ocean view? Woodland view? Mountain view? What we are looking at matters.

“My eyes are undeniably connected to my spirit.”

If you search the Scripture for “eyes” or “sight,” you quickly realize that the Lord cares about our eyes way more than we do. Sometimes He refers to the eyes of our heart and sometimes He refers to our actual eyes. I’m not taking care of either.

Google has given me googly eyes. I assume you know what googly eyes are. You know those craft eyes? They lifelessly bounce around, existing as a cute, but far from real representation of the wonderful eyes God created. My eyes, and my heart, bounce around from topic to topic, tab to tab. Have a problem, symptom, or history question? Ask Google. Want a vacation, job, or new hairstyle? Ask Google. Now, I’m not literally running to my computer every time I have a thought or idea or problem. But my heart and mind go to Google before anything else. I am literally trading my real eyes for googly eyes and I am making a terrible trade.

Instead of asking Google, why don’t I ask the Lord? I could go to my God, who knows my situation, who knows everything, who made the heavens and the earth and who formed my very being in my mother’s womb. He is accessible, near, and listening, all the time. He has wisdom and understanding that we cannot fathom. I’ve got one heart, one mind, one set of eyes, and one set of legs, so if I am running to Google, to my husband, to a friend, or to social media, I cannot at the same time run to the Lord. If I fix my eyes and my heart on my computer screen or my phone, then I’ve traded my real eyes for googly eyes and I’m not fixed on the Holy of Holies.

“If I fix my eyes and my heart on my computer screen or my phone, then I’ve traded my real eyes for googly eyes and I’m not fixed on the Holy of Holies.” 

My vision on life is blurry right now and my spirit is not quiet because I’m not fixing my gaze on God. Actually, I’m not fixing my gaze on anything. I’ve lost the ability to fix my eyes and my heart anywhere. That would require me to be still, body and spirit. No phone to tap, no email to check, no calendar to flip through, no leg lifts to do. I currently have 13 tabs open on my computer. I am “researching” camps, jobs, scripture, cough remedies, checking email, and keeping tabs on Facebook. I actually tell myself this is research, which is Satan’s way of packaging this habit with a nice, respected word. This is simply not how I was made to live. So if I want my restless spirit to be transformed into a quiet spirit, I need to take better care of my eyes.

What about you? What are you looking at? Where you look with your physical eyes can show you where your heart is. Do you have a “quiet spirit” or does the phrase just kind of tick you off because you know you don’t? Have you fixed your gaze on the Lord today?

“One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” Psalm 27:4, NIV