Take A Good Look - Looking Ahead

Proverbs 4:25 - 27

“Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.”

According to the Federal Communications Commission, in the United States, 9 people are killed and over 1,000 people are injured each day in driving accidents caused by distractions. These are called “distraction related accidents.” As you can imagine, many of these distractions are related to the use of cell phones while driving. In 2018 alone, there were over 400,000 distraction-related accidents. Texting, retrieving email messages, checking calendar appointments, looking up an address and other distractions cause us to take our eyes off the road and can lead to automobile accidents. It really does make sense to not drive distracted!

Just as we can become easily distracted while driving, we can also become distracted while living, especially living the Christ-life. It seems like every day we are pulled in multiple directions away from what we ought to be doing and to what we need not be doing. For example, how are you coming on those New Year’s commitments you made just a few days ago? This year I am reading through my Bible and I am following the reading plan of the Scottish pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne. We are not two (2) full weeks into the year and I have already been distracted. Nevertheless, I press on. 

What is the point? We are distracted when it comes to our walk with Christ. The writer of Proverbs 4:25 says it this way, “Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.” In order to live the Christ life, we are to focus, look in front of us, and press on. Just consider some of the words in this scripture verse as we think about looking ahead.

Directly.

This word expresses the idea that we are going one direction, but turn to go the opposite direction. It means “in front.”  Our gaze is to be in front of us, opposite of where we might naturally look. 

Fixed straight.

The idea here is to be smooth, straight, and right. Our look is to be straight ahead and smooth. Verse. 27 supports this idea when it says, “do not look to the right or left.”

So how does all of this apply to us? The enemy will do anything he can to distract us from living the Christ-life, including distracting our gaze. 

Let me give you an example or two. Unforgiveness is one of those things that makes us look back and distracts us from following Christ. When we refuse forgiveness to someone that has harmed us, it means we are actually looking back. We are looking back at the wrong done to us, looking back at the betrayal we felt, and looking back at the hurt we experienced. Instead of looking ahead at what Jesus has for us, we look back with unforgiveness. Just as unforgiveness keeps us from looking ahead, so does the cousin of unforgiveness, bitterness. When we are bitter about our life circumstances, we are distracted from what God has for us. And before you know it, we have followed the wrong path.

Verses 26 - 27 puts it all together for us, “Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.” 

Think about that phrase, “watch the path of your feet.”  The imagery in this verse is important. I imagine taking a walk on a narrow pathway with all kinds of exciting opportunities off to the right and off to the left. I imagine those opportunities to look more exciting and more appealing than the path I am taking. But this verse reminds me that looking to the right or left is an enticement of evil. So the writer of Proverbs reminds us to look at the path in front of us, and not become distracted.

I suspect your journey today is just like mine, full of “opportunities,” which could be distractions. So can I encourage you to refocus and look straight ahead.  Forget about the things that distract us, things like sin, unforgiveness, bitterness, and all the other distractions. Look straight ahead. Your life’s future is not found in the rearview mirror. Nor is it found in the side view mirrors. It is only found by looking straight ahead.

I pray today you will keep a forward look. Let me know how I can pray for you. You can email me back at david@davidsmithministry.com.