DAY 13...For Your eyes Only
"The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"
- Matthew 6:22-24
There are plenty of stories of people seeing things and becoming traumatized. Ray Charles went blind after he saw his brother drown in a washing pale. The impact of what we view can be extreme. In some cases the effects are immediate and in others, there is more subtle change.
What do you see? What impact does what you see have on your brain and heart? Or your soul? Things like seeing someone else yawn may cause you to yawn too. Watching a graphic video of someone in another country being murdered brutally should make you recoil and feel bad. Watching two human beings having sex has an effect on you in many different ways.
The dopamine and other drugs that fire off in your brain when you see something tragic, beautiful, exciting are designed to create a reaction in you. When we engage in something that fires those chemicals off at an unnatural rate or participating in things that are not natural or reality, we become numb to reality.
Pornography causes us to be lonely. The viewing of something on screen chemically stimulates the brain to respond to videos instead of real people. It changes the way we look at real people. Who do we see on the screen then? That person is someone's daughter or son. That person is someone's mom or dad in some cases. That person may (is likely) forced into doing acts that they don't want to do. (We'll talk about the sex slavery market another time).
- Matthew 6:22-24
There are plenty of stories of people seeing things and becoming traumatized. Ray Charles went blind after he saw his brother drown in a washing pale. The impact of what we view can be extreme. In some cases the effects are immediate and in others, there is more subtle change.
What do you see? What impact does what you see have on your brain and heart? Or your soul? Things like seeing someone else yawn may cause you to yawn too. Watching a graphic video of someone in another country being murdered brutally should make you recoil and feel bad. Watching two human beings having sex has an effect on you in many different ways.
The dopamine and other drugs that fire off in your brain when you see something tragic, beautiful, exciting are designed to create a reaction in you. When we engage in something that fires those chemicals off at an unnatural rate or participating in things that are not natural or reality, we become numb to reality.
Pornography causes us to be lonely. The viewing of something on screen chemically stimulates the brain to respond to videos instead of real people. It changes the way we look at real people. Who do we see on the screen then? That person is someone's daughter or son. That person is someone's mom or dad in some cases. That person may (is likely) forced into doing acts that they don't want to do. (We'll talk about the sex slavery market another time).
So what should we be seeing? We should be seeing what God sees. We should be connecting with people where they're at. Empathy is a harder thing to come by these days because we are often so enthralled with our own world which is sometimes contained in our phone or technology. It is taking away from real authentic relationships.
There are people all around us struggling. Are we seeing it and where we can help or are we so into ourselves, our world, even pornography than to take time to see someone else who could use our love?
There are people all around us struggling. Are we seeing it and where we can help or are we so into ourselves, our world, even pornography than to take time to see someone else who could use our love?
Today's Instructions:
A. Pray for the day, for friends, for family, for enemies. Thanksgiving, Requests, Praise.
B. In the Fortify Program, Update the battle tracker. Go to Week 2. Answer, "What have you done in the past." "Three Days of Kindness" and watch "Hopeful and Realistic Expectations."
C. Go to the daily readings and read today's Scripture.
D. Journal the following: 1. Is there someone I have not been attentive to who could use my love and support? 2. What can I do to help give myself selflessly to others to help the grieving, the needy, the hurting?
Today's Tips: When the urges come get up. Stop. Breathe. Find someone who you know is need and help them. Connect with them. It could be a friend or a homeless person you pass by on the way to work. Sit with that person and connect. Seek them out. If that's not possible in the moment, what could you watch that you've been wanting to see? Perhaps a documentary or movie with a good message, find that and do that, if you can't away. Direct your eyes to something good.
God give you strength. See you tomorrow.
Don't ever come back to this page to start over. This is the launching pad. You've already begun, even if you fall.
If you want to review this page, please do, but do not come back here to start over.
A. Pray for the day, for friends, for family, for enemies. Thanksgiving, Requests, Praise.
B. In the Fortify Program, Update the battle tracker. Go to Week 2. Answer, "What have you done in the past." "Three Days of Kindness" and watch "Hopeful and Realistic Expectations."
C. Go to the daily readings and read today's Scripture.
D. Journal the following: 1. Is there someone I have not been attentive to who could use my love and support? 2. What can I do to help give myself selflessly to others to help the grieving, the needy, the hurting?
Today's Tips: When the urges come get up. Stop. Breathe. Find someone who you know is need and help them. Connect with them. It could be a friend or a homeless person you pass by on the way to work. Sit with that person and connect. Seek them out. If that's not possible in the moment, what could you watch that you've been wanting to see? Perhaps a documentary or movie with a good message, find that and do that, if you can't away. Direct your eyes to something good.
God give you strength. See you tomorrow.
Don't ever come back to this page to start over. This is the launching pad. You've already begun, even if you fall.
If you want to review this page, please do, but do not come back here to start over.
