What You See Depends Mainly on What You Look For.

    The reason many people don't get answers from God is the same reason a thief doesn’t find a policeman: he’s running away. How we position ourselves in life makes all the difference. To one person the world is desolate, dull, and empty; to another the same world looks rich, interesting, and full of meaning. The choice is up to you. It's like how a twenty-dollar bill looks so big when it goes to church and so little when it goes out for groceries.

    If you look at life the wrong way there’s always cause for alarm. Most people complain because roses have thorns. Instead be thankful thorns have roses. What you see depends mainly on what you look for.

    A young man was getting ready to graduate college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.

    As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful, wrapped gift box.

     Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily, he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy
book.

         Many years passed, and the young man was very successful in
business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away and willed all his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things. When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.

         He began to search his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope taped behind the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the
sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...PAID IN FULL.

    How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected or located where we want them to be?
    Position yourself to receive, not resist. How you see things on the outside depends on how things are on the inside of you. "Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure" (Norman Vincent Peale). "You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are" (Herb Cohen). Develop the hunter's approach, the outlook wherever you go there are ideas waiting to be discovered. When you are positioned right, opportunity presents itself.

    Opportunity can be missed if you’re broadcasting when you should be tuning in. When opportunity knocks, some people object to the interruption. “One of the greatest and most comforting truths is that when one door opens, another closes, but often we look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that is open for us” (Anonymous).

    See success where others see only failure. Expect something good to happen. That expectation will energize your dreams and give them momentum. You'll often find life responds to your outlook. We go where our vision is. Life is mostly a matter of expectation.

    You'll gain the advantage by doing things before they need to be done—positioning yourself ahead of time. Enduring success is found when you travel in advance of the crowd. I believe one of the major benefits of reading the Bible is how it teaches us how to respond in advance to many of life's challenges and opportunities.

    Dig a well before you’re thirsty. Plant a seed before you’re hungry. The trouble with the future for most people is it arrives before they are ready for it. Positioning yourself to receive causes you to be ready. The most important question is: Are you ready?