A NEW FAD: SKINNY GLASSES

I have new eyeglasses. For the first time in my life the eye doc fitted me with bifocals. No comments about getting old, my feelings are easily hurt. I’m pretty sure something is not quite right with my new spectacles because they change the shape of things. When I look through the lenses, which is the whole point of glasses the last time I checked, everything becomes more vertical. It’s not so much that it changes the way I drive or makes it difficult to pick things up, it’s just that everything is, err, skinny. When I look at myself in a mirror I see someone who is 10 pounds lighter and 10 pounds younger. Not necessarily a bad thing, come to think of it. My youngest daughter, Kristen, calls them my “skinny glasses.” There could be a market for these types of glasses. Instead of dieting and exercise, just get MBR Skinny Glasses. Of course, there’s one small problem: While my new glasses change what I see, it doesn’t change what others see when they look at me.  Oh, well, my first million-dollar idea is toast.

Everyday, when each of us wakes up in the morning, we have a very important choice to make. This choice involves how we’re going to look at our world. We can choose to focus on all that’s wrong in the world, and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with negativity OR we can choose to focus on what’s right in our world, and move forward with a positive attitude. This is really a simple concept, but one which is very important. I have found that a pretty much any point in my life I will have some amazingly wonderful things happening and some equally amazingly painful things, at the same time. Rare are the times when life is all good or all bad. Most of the time, I’m faced with the choice I’ve just described: How am I going to look at my world today?

Recently I had a conversation with someone I’ve known for a long time, but I haven’t seen in many years. When I was around this person years ago, I knew them to be the type of person that could very easily and quickly become very negative. In our brief conversation, this person once again showed this side of their personality. I was saddened because it means they haven’t really changed. They haven’t allowed the love and life of Christ to transform them into a new person. There’s a lot of cynicism, skepticism and negativity in our world today. In this year of a presidential election, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. Romans 12:2 offers a great challenge to all of us: “Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (New Living Translation) Maybe it’s time for a little self-evaluation, where you take the opportunity to intentionally think about what you think about. Most of us would do well to change the way we think and what we choose to focus on, so take the challenge.

All of the above to say, my world is looking much better since I started wearing my skinny glasses!