Word & Worship focus

     "Mom, mom, come here!  This is amazing," my 11 year old exclaimed from the dining room where he was supposed to be studying for two big tests coming up this week.  He was rereading the book, Firegirl, to help prepare for the first test on monday.
     "Look at this, Mom!"  I rushed into the dining room prepared to be dazzled or shocked or perhaps enlightened by his incredible new insight.
     "Look--there are five words in a row here that only have two letters each.  How about that?!"
     Gee, incredible.
     hmm, I think we are experiencing a bit of a focus problem here.    
     Just a guess, but I'm betting there will be no questions on the test related to the number and location of multiple monosyllabic words.  But if there are, we've totally got it.  Not so certain, however, about how solid we are on the themes, conflicts, and fact questions that my son was supposed to be studying.
     Wonder where he got that from?  Surely not from his frequently scattered mama.  After all, I may have lost car keys, cell phone, Bible study book, and wheel chair in the course of one morning, but I did find them all--after much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
      Isn't it remarkable how quickly we can lose our focus and perspective?  It's often been said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing."  So true, but so difficult, isn't it?  We think we are going along pretty well, keeping our priorities straight, seeking God first, loving our families, refusing to be sidetracked by life's flotsam.  Then, wham, suddenly we find ourselves preoccupied with the unimportant or focused on possessions rather than people or worrying about all we have to do rather than worshipping the all perfect Lord or craving the gifts rather than the Gift-giver.
     I was just reminded of this when I read Jesus' words to His disciples.  The disciples had gone into town to buy food.  (Now personally,  I totally get that, because like those disciples, I am all about food and making sure I never miss a meal.)  When they return, the disciples tell Him, "Rabbi, eat."  Jesus responds, however, "I have food to eat that you do not know about... My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work." (John 4:31,34)
     That is what Jesus came to do--the Father's will.  To accomplish His plan of salvation by going to the cross.  His focused obedience informed every aspect of His life and enabled Him to have joy and peace even in the midst of turmoil and pain... because He had His eyes on the prize.
      Ever and always, fixing His eyes on the prize of winning our salvation by obeying His Father's will all the way to the cross... and to the empty tomb, praise God.
        If ever there was a man with perfect focus and perspective, it was the Lord Jesus.  Constantly dependent upon, obedient to, and thankful for His Heavenly Father.
     We, on the other hand, can relate all too readily to the disciples--preoccupied with the temporal and pursuing all the wrong priorities so that we forfeit the joy and peace of walking with Christ in the day to day abundant life.  We get lost looking for monosyllabic words and miss the exciting plot and inspiring themes of the book staring us in the face!
      Like my mom used to say in tennis, we've got to go back to the basics and "keep your eye on the ball!"
     And the main way to do that is to stay in His Word.  Daily.  Like I said, the disciples and I are kindred spirits when it comes to food, and we don't like to miss a meal.  No sir, when I skip a meal, I can get a wee bit irritable... and melodramatic... and scatterbrained... and generally not a whole lot of fun to be around.  Because I'm HUNGRY, for pete's sake!
     So if that's true of physical food, how much more so His supernatural spiritual food!  We need it daily to nourish our spirits and give us focus and wisdom and perspective... and to reveal the Lord of Lords to us in all His glory.  No wonder so many of us walk around in a daze of misplaced affections and skewed priorities--we are forgetting to eat!  To eat His fully satisfying and sustaining Word.
     Just today, I read: "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." (Col.2:6-7)  That's how we're rooted and built up in Him--in His Word.
     And the result will always be "overflowing with thankfulness."
     That's the second part of the equation, I think: thankfulness; gratitude to the gracious Giver of all good gifts.  More on this later, but if we're preoccupied with thanksgiving, we won't be pursuing things that ultimately don't satisfy.  It's either worship or worry.  Gratitude or grumpiness.  A grateful heart or a complaining heart.  A focus on all God has given us or a focus on all we think we lack.
      I don't know about you, but I want to have the right focus in life--a preoccupation with the Savior and His goodness and grace in my life.  And in the simplest terms that means two priorities right now:  His Word and His worship.   We need to daily, consistently eat from His Word.  And we need to daily, consistently worship and praise and thank Him.
     Two simple choices... that will change our lives if we will but do them.  How about it?
     The month of November--through Thanksgiving--I'm going to try to write each day about some aspect of gratitude or worship or thanksgiving.  Maybe you don't need it... but I sure do.  Because if I don't choose to be grateful, my default position can easily become discontentment, envy, grumbling, and worry.  Yuck--for God, for others, and for me!  Nope, God's way is infinitely more joyful, infinitely more satisfying, infinitely more peaceful, and, well, infinitely, abundantly more. 
     So time to get strengthened by the Word and to overflow with thankfulness.  Hope you'll join me.
     To our glorious, gracious, generous God, be all the glory.