What Are You Looking At?

03/23/2006

"God has made everything beautiful for its own time.
He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so,
people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from
beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT)

It's not, "Location. Location. Location," instead it's, "Focus. Focus. Focus."

Okay, when buying property, "Location" is key, but we're not buying property every day of our lives. Most days we're going about our normal business of getting the kids to school, or getting to our job, or taking care of a household, or even spending time on vacation. Whatever it is we are doing, "Focus" is key!

How many of us are faltering from strange events in our lives, from turmoil, from fear? How many of us lose our focus on the Hope we have waiting when all is said and done on this earth, and instead focus on the problems of the day...on the rain that seems to never stop? And yet, if we will refocus our attention on the Word of God daily, we will find our hope again.

God says, "Look to Me. Pray to Me. Read My Word." And when we do, we will have refocused our attention on Him, on His Truth, on His goodness, and we will be able to "stand straight and look up," and have Hope, for our salvation is near!

Anyone on the outside looking in might say we look focused, our lives have not slipped all that much, our walk with the Lord seems to be right on track, we're being "good," we're doing all the "right things"--and yet on the inside we could be the tiniest degree away from facing the Lord Jesus Christ fully, and then there we go again... straight into the ditch, landing in the mud and mire.

We can't always know why the rains come, and seem to never stop.
We can't always know why people die, why planes crash, why abuse happens.
Because we can't "see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end."

We have to pray to resist the temptation that wants to lure us into a pit of despair in our daily walk on this earth, and refocus on the Truth consistently. There are things that will come very close to the Truth of God in our lives, but they could be just a tiny degree off. That tiny degree of lost focus could end up costing us years of aimless wandering until we find our way back again. God will continue to be with us, because God is amazing even in a non-Christian environment. In the end, we can choose to believe, or we can choose not to believe--it doesn't change who God is!

Will we still end up in the ditch from time to time? Yes, we will, but we can learn to focus better each day on our Lord as He leads us through this maze called life. We can learn to study the Bible, to "mediate on it day and night," so that we may be reminded that "the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:8 & 9b NLT)