Monday, January 26, 2009

Focus



So funny that my lack of focus is why I forgot to post this on Friday!


Focus. Finish. Focus! Today's column was very hard for me to write. I am in awe of the wonderful writers here at Take Root and Write who are able to post months of their column in advance. These women are such an inspiration. I, on the other hand, am not one of those women. I never know what I am going to write about beforehand. I usually just sit down, pray, and ask God to use me to convey what He wants to say. Then, I put pen to paper. This week, I was not able to focus long enough to hear what God wanted to tell me. This week was a paragraph here, a few sentences there; lots of starts but nothing finished. Lots of ideas, great things to say, but no focus to finish any of them. I have been so absent minded lately. My mind has even started to wander during my prayer time. It doesn't seem like I can finish praying for more than one person at a time! God has been pointing it out every chance he gets too."Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10 KJV). I hear him. I really do. I put be still on my to do list once again. Even though it is already there, maybe subconsciously I think I will eventually get to it if it keeps popping up. My mind has so many projects it wants to start, so many things it wants to read, so many places it wants to see, and just...so...many...things!

"Be still. Focus. Listen to my voice." My eyes may be closed but concentrating...I am not! I know God is peace. I know He is my rest. And, I know where he is! So why does it seem I keep going in the opposite direction? My internal global positioning system (GPS) must be on the fritz!



For some reason this brings to mind images of a toddler pulling a toy from the toy box only to play with it for only a few minutes before being drawn back to pull out yet another one; again and again until all the toys are scattered in one big overwhelming pile. All heaped together, they just look like a complicated mess and none of them seem as exciting or fulfilling as they once did. Sometimes I feel like a little kid sitting in the middle of all my stuff. Not sure what I want or even what I need to keep. I can hear my Father calling me in the background to come to Him. I start to get up, then one of my things distracts me. My job, my kids, my friends, my kids activities. You know what I'm talking about, that life I keep complaining that I don't have. It seems I have gotten caught up in listening to so many other things that I can no longer hear His small still voice.

My Father must be so frustrated with me right now. Just as I get frustrated with my son over his grades or my daughter over her room. How much more important is eternity? How much more do I need to focus on Him, His word, and His plan for our futures? So much more than I do on such temporary, fleeting things! Taking care of our families is the most important responsibility we have. Being concerned where our loved ones will spend eternity is true caring. Yes, all those fleeting things that make up our daily lives need to be taken care of, but they should not take our focus away from God. We will have Him forever; our things we will not. We can not allow the enemy to steal our focus. We know he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10 KJV).

It is so easy for the dark one to come and steal our focus if we are distracted. This can kill our faith and destroy our future. It only takes a second. Just as it only takes a second for a child to disappear, it only takes one distraction to lead to another. One thing you just "gotta" do is pray. Let's encourage each other to focus on Him today. Finish the journey with Him and for Him. No matter how many post it notes you have on your fridge or computer, make time to focus on The Father.

2 comments:

Julie Arduini said...

The word God has hammered into my head with love so far in 2009 is "Focus"! Imagine my shock to see this as your post.

I'm going to check out Nahum 3 and see if I come up with anything.

If you'd like to check out what I wrote about focus, it's over at http://thenarrowgateinvites.blogspot.com. It's a team blog but I know all three of us wrote about focus.

Anonymous said...

Hey Venus. This is Jennifer Miller, a fellow Take Root writer (Marriage from a Distance). God has also been telling me to focus. I could have written your article as well. Focus seems to be something so hard for me lately. But thankfully God is so patient with me and keeps reminding me to focus.

Typically I wrote my column like you, month by month, waiting for God to provide my focus for that month. This year He gave me a focus for the year. So my column has this theme for the year "Focusing Forward".

Great article and thank you so much for sharing your heart and encouraging others by doing so.

Jennifer