- Apr 20, 2022
- 3 min read
“There is a lot to be thankful for if you know how to look. There is a lot to be angry about if you fail to look correctly.”
Embrace the Within.
Sometimes we take our eyes off the goal and get bogged down with the temporal, the fleeting, the mundane, the vulgar. Doing this is quite easy and not uncommon even with those that are in the witness of great deeds. Luke 24 tells of two followers of Jesus that got caught up in what was going on around them temporally and lost focus on the eternal message. These two fellas were so caught up in what was happening on earth that the resurrected Christ walked with them, spoke to them, and even taught them scripture and they failed to recognize the eternal among them. It was only when they broke bread together that Christ’s true identity was revealed to these two fellas. And, in retrospect, they realized that they should have known, must have known, unconsciously knew, because in verse thirty-two they asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Sometimes we get distracted by all that is going on around us in the temporal. And there is a lot of mess that can take our eyes from what we want, from what matters most. And we then realize that we’re not doing the things that get us aligned with the eternal. We aren’t producing the results we want. So, we have to turn back and examine our focus. I get all the weight of being a husband, a father, an employee, a friend, a community member, and so much more to carry around daily just like you get weighed down by the burdens of temporal life. We have a lot of temporal, a lot of earthly obligations. BUT, we have to realize, like those two fellas walking down the road to Emmaus, what we want and what matters.
See, those two were so caught up in the news of the past four days concerning the death and resurrection of Christ that they couldn’t see Him when He was there with them. They couldn’t recognize God made flesh even when He was teaching the scriptures. They couldn’t see beyond the weight of their temporal, their worldly obligations. They were weighed down by what they saw as bad news.
Today we can choose to get weighed down by what is happening around us. We can choose to focus on things that do not align with what we want and what matters to us. We can choose to get off track, off focus, and off message. We can choose to be angry and frustrated and full of hate. We can choose to focus on the world as we see it. OR we can choose to focus on what we want. We can choose to focus on what matters. We can choose to focus on the eternal and the promise of the world to come. It all depends on my perspective. It all depends on what I choose.
If I am focused on what I want and align myself with what matters, then I am more readily able to do those things. And if I am doing those things in alignment with God’s word then I will start producing the results that I want and influencing what matters. It all depends on my focus. Today, I am going to control my focus and get to what I want. I am going to do what needs be done and produce the results that come from that alignment.
Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.