I Don’t Look

by Donald Cantrell

One summer, I was having some issues with my air-conditioning unit, so I called my nephew, who works on them for a living. We talked about what was going on with the unit, and it did not take him long to diagnose the problem, which was the capacitor. He told me that he would drop by as soon as he finished his current job and bring the part to fix it.

My nephew is also a preacher, and after he completed the job, we were standing around talking about God, the church, and the Bible. I had seen a snake in my yard before he came by, and I asked him if he had ever seen snakes as he crawled around in attics or underneath people’s houses. Then, my nephew said something very simple yet very profound. He said, “I don’t look,” and the moment he said that, I felt as if a light clicked on in my mind.

He went home, and I sat around and meditated upon those three simple words, “I don’t look.” How often do we see things only because we look for those things? How many people rub us the wrong way because we try to see things in their lives that rub us the wrong way? Some people are always looking; they look for flaws, so they find flaws. Some look for failures in the lives of others, so they obviously find areas of failure. Some are always looking for glaring faults in others, and guess what they find: they find glaring faults.

What are you looking for as you deal with others? I will tell you something that may have slipped by: you will see exactly what you are looking for. This might be very beneficial for our marriages; we will see what we are looking to see in our spouse. If those of us who are moms

and dads are looking for areas to critique and to criticize in our children, then that is what we will find.

We have a choice to make each and every day; we can be an inflator or a deflator. If you want to see flaws and weaknesses in the lives of those around us, then we can easily deflate them. If we choose to see the good in others,

to praise the good things that we see in others, then we can be an inflator. Do you like to be criticized? How do you feel when someone offers you words of praise and words of encouragement?

Today you need to make a decision about what you will see in the lives of others. Maybe you need to focus on seeing the good in others, rather than seeing the bad in others. If we decide to seek out the good in others, there is a possibility that we will end up being better ourselves.

What are you looking for in dealing with others? I will tell you this: you will see what you’re looking to see!

Donald Cantrell is a lifelong native of Murray county and has been pastoring and preaching since 1980. He has had the honor of publishing over thirty books and his sermon material is sold all over the world by various online companies. If you visit his house any weekend in the fall you will find them watching the “Florida Gators or the New England Patriots… Chomp Chomp.”

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