Losing Focus

You ever notice how hard it can be to stay on task….to stay focused on something that is so important?  But once you get in the groove, into a routine, a pattern…..its not so hard anymore.  But then all of a sudden life happens….things are going great and things slowly start to change.  School is back in session, soccer starts to take over the nights of the week and weekends, and then your occasional hurricane evacuation….and before you know it, something you’ve worked so hard to stay consistent with just up and vanishes.

Honestly I don’t even know the last time I sat down to write.  I kept telling myself, “Tomorrow won’t be so busy.  I’ll do it then.”  But the excuses kept coming, like they so often do in life.  And one day leads to the next, and the next, and before long….the writing stops.  But it wasn’t just my writing that stopped.  I started slipping back to my old ways….listening to more news on the radio than the music and sermons that kept me going throughout the day.  Then a few Sundays of skipping church because of this and that.  It’s so easy to slip….and once you start rolling down that mountain, it can be difficult to catch yourself.

I’ve still been reading my Bible.  I’ve still been praying multiple times throughout the day, but I know on the inside that I’ve lost my focus.  My focus on what is truly important.

Paul has a strong warning to those in my same predicament.  “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude;  and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by the same standard to which we have attained.  Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.  For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.  For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;  who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:15-21.)”

God is my ultimate counselor.  He is there, even when we think we don’t need Him.  But it’s also good to surround yourself with friends and family to keep encouraging you, even when your focus seems to have gone astray.  Sometimes that encouragement seems like nagging, but that’s only because you aren’t seeing it from outside the box.  The text messages saying,” I miss your writing,” or “It’s not about you, it’s about your words that you share with others,” ……when you take the time to stop and think, and get out of your own way, are truly meant in Love.  And I thank those of you who have kept me focused.

Every day is a new chance to grow…a new opportunity to learn.  And I’ve learned that staying focused is hard.  And the less focused we are on God, the happier the devil gets.  He celebrates every time we skip church….every time we skip the opportunity to share Christ with others.  And with God as my strength, I won’t let these lapses in my commitment to Christ happen anymore.  I will write what has been placed on my heart…whether I have to sacrifice a few minutes of sleep, or a few minutes of television….because I didn’t start this blog for me, but for the possibility of helping just one of you out there, and glorifying God in everything I do.

I pray that you can keep your focus during the most difficult of times.  I pray that I can be there, through God’s will, to help encourage you.  I pray that all of us stay strong, and not get lost in the ways of the world, but focus on the One who made the world.

And I leave you today with this…….a Psalm that I have read before, but it never really sank in….

Let the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.       (Psalm 19:14)