The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:22-24
“True simplicity regards God alone; it has its eye fixed upon Him, and is not drawn toward self…All our uneasy feelings and reflections arise from self-love, whatever appearance of piety they may assume. The lack of simplicity inflicts many wounds. Go where we will, if we remain in ourselves, we carry everywhere our sins and our distresses. If we will live in peace, we must lose sight of self, and rest in the infinite and unchangeable God.”
Jeanne Guyon (1648-1717) as recounted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, compiled by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1895) 544.
On what is your eye fixed?
Today my “eye” will be fixed on a fly, or perhaps a “strike indicator” if I am nymphing. A good fly fisherman is focused. The “focus” aspect of fly fishing with my son, Sammy, and with Clay and Charlie Jones around New Year’s day always takes my mind and, more importantly, my heart back to the one thing I must be fixed on this year: God.
If our eye is fixed on anything else, not only will we not exhibit generosity, we will “inflict wounds” as Guyon put it. I’ve inflicted a lot of wounds over the years. Perhaps you have too. To prepare our hearts for a generous year, let’s focus on true simplicity, that is on God alone, so that our lives will be full of His light!