Focus

As I continued to read in Wide Awake by Erwin McManus on Friday, I read a couple of paragraphs that might be of help to some of you. I don't know if you struggle with this, but if so, I hope this helps.

Do you ever struggle with feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities and opportunities? This alone can cause you to lose your focus. It's easy to lose sight of where you're headed and why you're going there when there is so much need and opportunity. If you don't lock into the life God has called you to live, you will find yourself pulled and torn by everyone else's desire and expectation for your life.

What happens to many of us is that everyone else has a plan for our lives, and we end up losing our lives trying to live theirs. Everyone else has something you should be doing. Believe me, if you don't have a purpose for your life, there are plenty of people who will be happy to give you theirs. If you do not develop the ability to say no to many important things, you're going to lose the big yes of your life.

Even Jesus has limitations. This is pretty unusual, when you consider the fact that he was God. I don't know if you've noticed, but there were a lot of important things Jesus didn't get done while he walked among us. He didn't end wars. I wish he had, but he didn't. He didn't bring an end to violence. Would have been great, but it didn't happen. Jesus did not end the condition of human suffering. It would have been an important thing, a good thing, but he didn't do it. He didn't stop the rapid spread of devastating diseases. It would have been a good thing to do, but he didn't do that. Strangely enough, though healing was important, he didn't heal everyone, and though feeding people was important, he didn't feed everyone.

What sometimes is hard for us to accept is that Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, didn't come to do everything in that moment. He came to do the most important things. He came to do what no one else could do on our behalf. Jesus came into this world and offered his life as a sacrifice for us so that through his death on the cross, we enter into relationship with God himself. While there were many good things to do, from the mind of God, this was the most essential thing to do when he came into history. Why?

Well, to begin with, he's coming back to take care of all the other problems later. In the meantime, what god has done is put the welfare and future of humanity in our hands. This is what God did at the beginning, back in the garden of Eden. This time, though, he re-creates us so that our lives might be a gift to humanity. We are God's strategy for creating a better world. We all have a part to play. For some, that part is bigger than for others. Yet all of us are critical and essential.

So, my question for you today is, what is your part? Seek God, and He will answer you. Blessings on this fabulous Lord's Day.