Luke 11: American Eyes

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. 
See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 
Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.” - Luke 11:34-36 NIV

Years ago, an Indian woman, a native of India who was now living in the United States, told me forlornly, "I still have an Indian heart, but I have American eyes."  I fear it is easy for all of us to succumb to "American eyes".  We live in such a visual society.  We are bombarded on all counts by pictures of the ideal:  the ideal body, the ideal car, the ideal vacation, the ideal wife, the ideal job, the ideal house, the ideal clothing, the ideal trinket.  As most of us have discovered, getting or achieving the ideal whatever, has not made us happier, and for Christians, we must realize it has not made us more Christ like.  On the contrary, chasing after all the things that our eyes have seized a glimpse of has dimmed the light that should be shining.  Most of us are very poor examples of what Jesus was telling us to be.  We look good, we think we are impressing others, but we are not.  We need to stop looking to the world for our light and instead turn our eyes to the light of the world, the only one that can infuse us with the light that illuminates the darkness.