“Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.”
-Jonathan Edwards
Gloria Furman shared a great prayer by Jonathan Edwards on a podcast I was listening to the other day. It was so helpful to me, especially on that particular day. Maybe it’ll be helpful to you on this particular day, too? The prayer says, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.”
Gloria went on to say, “What Jonathan means by that is- he wants God to give him the vision for the things he’s doing in the moment…for the things that have happened in the past…He wants to see all that through the lens of the future.
He wants you to see that future Grace is running into you headlong, and that you can’t avoid it, and that we have eternity ahead of us…and that everything is done in light of that massive horizon that is looming. And that is so hard to see when you feel like (in certain situations, or on certain days) you’re going to lose your ever-loving mind. That kind of eternal perspective is something you need to carry around in your heart.”
And on our eyeballs. 😉 Praying peace over your heart and mind today, friends.
Layla
PS- Do you listen to ‘The Happy Hour‘, too? It’s my fav!
This was fabulous. Thank you!
This may not ve exactly what you’re talking about, but this is what came to my mind.
We home educated our son all of his life, and he just graduated in May. We took him on a 10 day trip to celebrate, and while we knew we would have fun, we wanted to be paying attention…… recognizing people God may have put in our path. Those who needed a word of encouragement or someone to just listen to them because they are lonely.
We encountered those people the whole trip, and what a blessing it was to meet them and talk to them. We even met a family in one of our last stops who blessed the socks off of us!
Hopefully we will always be looking for these opportunities in our every day lives as we work, play, and just live, because people is what eternity is about. People spending forever with God our Creator.
Your comment touched me profoundly today. I sometimes forget to listen to that voice that says the weirdest things to me… just yesterday as I was paying for a meal I asked the clerk how she was and she lacklusterly – is that a word? – replied “ok.” Something told me to give her a word of encouragement or make her laugh or even pry a little.. but I pushed that notion down because I was in a hurry. Thanks for reminding me that voice may be the voice of God asking me to be his surrogate for a moment….. or perhaps allowing someone to do the same for me! wow….I think I just blew my own mind with that last thought….
Amen, Donna! My post was about not getting too flustered about the things we tend to “lose our ever-loving” mind over, because that’s just the “here and now”. But when you pan out further…wider…to the eternal perspective, those little things aren’t going to matter one bit. I also loved reading about eternal perspective through the story *you* shared though. So beautiful!!!
WOW… What a truth and wonderful encouragement!!! Thank you for shraing
What?! The Happy Hour is so cool, now subscribing! Love Jamie’s adoption story, too. Thank you for sharing! :o)
I think we would all live our lives differently if we TRULY realized Who Jesus is, and who WE ARE IN HIM. This world is temporary. It is not our eternal home. We hold on so tightly to the things of this world, and the Word reminds us that they will all pass away. We are here for one thing, and that is to spread the Good News of the Gospel. What an amazing hope, eternity in heaven. Thanks for the precious reminder of this today. I needed it.
Oh, that’s so true, Robbin! Thank YOU for the reminder, too! 😀
The littlest thing can turn a thought, person, day, event into an amazing change in your or someone else’s lives. Embrace the little things you can do.