Focus

(cutestpaws,com)

Glasses, a magnifying glass, a telescope or binoculars; which help me see the big picture? I have enough of a problem seeing my fraction of the picture when it’s right in front of my face.


I’ve run into folks that need to micromanage everything. For the most part, I’ve grown content with focusing on my little piece of the puzzle – though I still need help adjusting my lenses to see what my little piece looks like. As the aging process ripens me, I realize it’s not my job to make sure all the pieces of the puzzles of life get fitted into place perfectly.

(collegegroveoptometry.com)

Though I can’t wait to see ‘the big picture’ – or what the puzzle will look like when it’s done, I have a job to do and it’s not the job of overseer. Like one tiny cog in the great-grandfather clock of time needs to consistently turn, I need to consistently keep my eyes on Jesus and follow Him in meekness and obedience. Yet, something innate drives me to reach out to help the other cogs turn, too. When one cog gets stuck, we all stop and time stands still for an eternity.

If we’re any more intelligent than a bumblebee or a horse – it should be all the easier for us to do our part. We certainly don’t see horses trying to make honey. Yet, we look at each other’s lives and try to do someone else’s part – some of us even try to do God’s part! He’s so patient with us. He trusts us to do our part more than we trust ourselves -and each other, more than we trust Him.

1 Corinthians 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. (NIV)

How Sharp Are My Questions?

Are we working too hard because our axe is dull? If we have the understanding to sharpen our axe, our work is made easier. That is, of course, our work includes cutting down trees. My axe might be equated with my questions. I learn more and I’m able to apply what I learn, if I’m asking relevant questions.

If a scene plays out before us, but the lens of the camera is zoomed in too close we might see a tough-looking boy shove a pretty little girl down on harsh concrete and cause her to drop her ice cream or teddy bear; skin her knees and dirty her dress, perhaps even break her arm if he falls on top of her.

When we zoom back and see the scene unfold in context, we might see that he wasn’t being mean at all. Rather, he was shoving her out of the way of an oncoming truck she failed to pay attention to. In reality, what could have looked like he was being rough and mean to her, can actually be his attempt to save her life.

Without pulling back on the lens, we might become angry and unfairly accuse the boy of wrong doing or seek to punish him. Our anger or grief might blind us to the possibility that there was something else happening, that what we perceived as reality, though it was real, was not the complete picture.

Do you think perhaps we sometimes accuse God of dealing with us unfairly? Do we sometimes get angry at Him for allowing unnecessary roughness?

1 Corinthians 13:8-12 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.