Good King Solomon was considered to be one of the wisest men who ever lived.  He authored several books in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The Book of Proverbs is one of my favorites.   In Hebrew it is part of the scriptures called Ketuvim or “writings”.  It is part of their “wisdom tradition” which also includes Job and Ecclesiastes
       “Whoever seeks good finds favor……..but evil comes to one who searches for it!”…….Proverbs 11:27

Do any of us really search for evil?  What are we missing here?

Many years ago, I thought it would be fun to take a psychology class.  In fact, I needed this credit to graduate.  The professor was known for his work in the field of adolescent psychology.  He also was a professed Believer, which was not that unusual back in my day.    The professor gave us an assignment. Each of us was assigned to write a paper on our adolescence years.  Both the positives and negatives of growing up and how it has affected us as adults. 

At one point during his lecture, the professor told his audience that he would project a picture on the screen for 90 seconds and instructed us to count how many shapes we could find in the picture.

A picture of a school bus carrying children on a sunny day down a tree-lined street immediately appeared and like everybody else I started to look for and count the shapes that I saw.  Then the 90 seconds were up. The photo disappeared.

The professor admitted that he was testing us.  Although he asked us to find various shapes, not one person even noticed the how many children were on the bus. 

So, case in point.  The good professor’s exercise pointed out that we only find what we are really looking for.  What we see in our lives reflects what we seek out and choose to focus on.  A person who is caught up in the negative aspects of life and is overly focused on their own problems will most likely have a difficult time seeing anything positive in life.  Such a person will find little joy in life and likely feel depressed and worthless. 

On the other hand, someone who seeks out the positive aspects of life and makes a conscience decision to focus on what is good, will see God’s blessings everywhere. Despite the problems of life, such a person will experience life as a blessing and feel grateful and happy much of the time. 

So, Solomon’s words are true.  If we look for the good in every situation, we will find it. But, if we are negative and thrive on being a victim of life, we will find validation for our victimhood everywhere. 

 Ultimately, our perspective on life determines the trajectory of our lives.  Let us choose to focus on God’s blessings and then as Solomon says, we will find even more of God’s favor.

                              Is your glass half full?  Or do you see it half empty?

                                                 The choice is yours.