I don’t watch a lot of television, but sometimes I will find myself watching something like a really stupid action movie that I’ve seen a thousand times and I can hear my mother’s voice echoing through time: “Are you going to waste your life watching that garbage?” That memory will alert me to the fact that I’m not 13 anymore and I really am wasting my dwindling years. This realization is usually all I need to turn off the set. This is not about to turn into a lecture about watching television or wasting time, but it does make me think about Psalm 101:3:
“I will set no worthless thing before my eyes…”
It’s not just frivolous television or detective novels (a couple of my favorite vices) that this verse brings to mind. Rather, it is a question of our focus – our attention to things as we go through life.
It’s easy to be cynical or negative. This tendency is made worse by focusing on worthless things and then concluding that everyone and everything is going to pot. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to find something praiseworthy and positive to think about and to set before your eyes, but it’s worth the effort to avoid being a bitter cynic about the goodness of other people or the world in general.
It is crucial to set no worthless things before our eyes because what we focus on shapes us. The Untouchables portrays an idealistic Eliot Ness, who in his relentless pursuit of criminals, ends up betraying his ethical standards. Upon reflection, he says: “I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold, I have become what I beheld…”
That line: “I have become what I beheld,” was searing the first time I heard it in the theater and it still serves as a voice of caution to this day. It helps me keep my resolve to ‘set no worthless thing before my eyes.’
Prayer:Lord, until we see you face to face and are transformed into your likeness, help us to keep our focus on loving and hopeful signs that exist even in the darkest and scariest times. And help us to be hopeful and loving signposts to one another. Amen.