General Robbie Risner described the seven years he spent as a prisoner as war as ‘the essence of despair.’ He said, ‘If you could have squeezed the feeling out of the word despair, it would have come out lead-coloured, dingy and dirty.’ What is amazing is how he survived. He pried the cover off a floor drain in his cell and lowered his head into the opening. There he noticed a solitary blade of grass, the only smidgeon of colour in his colourless world. Calling it a blood transfusion for the soul, Risner began each day in prayer, lying on the floor of his cell with his head down the vent, focused on that single blade of grass.
Jesus said, “Your eye provide light for your body, When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when the eye is bad, you whole body is filled with darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23 NLT). What are you looking at? Each day you get to decide where you will focus. And you won’t have to look hard to find things to complain about: war, petrol prices, the economy, global warming and crime. God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed in the Garden of Eden, but they chose to focus on the one thing they couldn’t have. They did got it and loose everything. He divided the Red Sea, sent signs to guide the Israelite in the wilderness and provided food so they had never go hungry. Initially they sang his praise. But soon forgot what he had done. Don’t be like that. The Bible says, ‘If there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things’. Surely can find something to praise God for today!
