Fixing our gaze

Encouraged and exhorted by these excerpts from the book Women of the Word, by Jen Wilkin:

We must make a study of our God: what He loves, what He hates, how He speaks and acts.  We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned.  We must make a study of Him if we want to become like Him.  We must seek His face.

We become what we behold.  Do you believe that?  Whether passively or actively, we become conformed to the pattern we spend the most time studying.

Upon what is your gaze fixed?  ...It is the nature of this life that we must fight daily to make room in our line of sight for that-which-transcends.  Many things hold a legitimate claim on our attention, but when our eyes are free from the two-year-old or the spreadsheet or the textbook or the dinner dishes, where do we turn them?  If we spend our time gazing only on lesser things, we will become like them, measuring our years in terms of human glory.

By fixing our gaze on [His] face, we trade mere human glory for holiness: "Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we are] transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corin. 3:18)

There are really only two possibilities in this life: be conformed to the image of God or be conformed to the pattern of this world.  No doubt, you want the former.  So make a faithful study of the One you want to imitate, as a dearly loved child.  Study everything that makes God wonderful and mimic to your heart's delight, as the joyful expression of your reciprocal love for Him.  Respond as David did, "My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek'' (Ps. 27:8).  To the one that seeks Him, the Lord is pleased to lift up His countenance.