TURN MY EYES FROM ....

TURN my eyes from looking at worthless things;
and GIVE me life in your ways. Psalm 119:37

From First John 2:16, worthless things are not the things of the world, but the sinful eyes that perverts these blessings into being the means of selfish and self-serving gain.
As in all the Psalms, David here asks the Lord to do for him what he cannot do himself. He doesn’t pray, “I will turn from looking at worthless things.” His request is a confession that he cannot sufficiently in and of himself, keep himself from looking at things with a perverted and self-serving eye. He knows that God must turn his eyes to Himself.
David has faced and by God’s grace overcame many temptations in his life prior to ascending to the throne. During this time of adversity, he knew that his life was solely in the hands of God. Yet, having come to the throne, to the seat of power and wealth, he faced different kinds of temptations. I find that I can stand well and resist various kinds of temptations that others succumb to. And likewise, I am daily confronted with other temptations to which I must confess, like Paul, “the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Romans 7:19. For David, he was able to fix his eyes on the Lord as his greatest good and bear the temptations of adversity. Yet when it came to living in prosperity, he was not able to keep his eyes so fixed and therefore prays, “turn my eyes – turn what I cannot turn from, the worthless and unto You."
As windows are often the access of the thief and the murder, so also the eyes are such windows by which theft, murder, and death enter the heart. A person would be wise to consider that it was to the eye that the first sin was pleasing, and through that eye, death entered into the world.
This petition echoes the request in the Lord’s Prayer by which we ask our Father to “lead us not into temptation."
Albert Barnes wrote, “an ugly object loses much of its deformity when we look often upon it.” The Lord tells us in Numbers 15:39 that our hearts are inclined to whore after the basest of our desires. How often has some lust, some longing of our sinful nature altered how we see those things which God’s Word declares to be ugly because it is unholy and death. With our eyes fixed upon such unholy ugliness, our eyes will then begin to look for one other more worthless thing – the justification of taking this ugliness to ourselves and our pleasure.
In the Hebrew, the word for “eye” is also used for a “fountain”. It gives pause to consider how the eye is like a fountain. A fountain pours forth out of itself to others, while the eye pours into a person. As a fountain can only pour forth that which is supplied to it, so also the eye can only pour into the soul that which it supplies. So therefore, David, and I ought to plead with the Lord to turn my eyes to the holy supply, to Him so that I may have life.
Without the Lord giving life and understanding, I am bound to my sinful pride's definition and delusions of what life is. Apart from the Lord’s giving me life and understanding according to His word, according to reality – I am trapped to see things perversely and never in their right way. Only by the Lord giving me LIFE in Himself, shall I then know what is real life and what are the illusions of life.
“Give me life in your ways!” What are the Lord’s ways – His ways are the way of His Law and His Gospel and these ways meet me on the Cross. What a blessed and joyous thing it is that I have never, and shall never hear the Lord Jesus say, “turn my eyes from looking at worthless things.” I who have made myself worthless by my fixation of eyes and heart on those things which are worthless, have a Savior who never asked God to save Him from looking upon me. As surely as the Lord Jesus set, or fixed, His face toward Jerusalem, toward the Cross, so surely has He set and fixed His eyes upon me and all mankind that we might be saved from our own worthlessness.
“Give me life in your ways!” Having fixed His eyes upon me, so now He would have me fix my eyes on his Cross and His resurrection so that I might see and behold His forgiveness and newness of life for me and all who would believe.
“Give me life in your ways!” Now does he call me to fix my eyes upon His ways of giving life in the midst of my own worthlessness. Now does He call me to fix my eyes and my heart upon His Word and Sacraments as His chosen ways of giving, sustaining and increasing His life in me.
“Give me life in your ways!” Give me faith in Jesus Christ who is Your Way of life, living, and seeing all things.