Side-Tracked

 

The things that distract and sidetrack me…. I let them have too much power. Surprisingly, they can be petty, small things that prove to be amazingly strong.

Moments ago, I stopped on my way through the family room to stand in front of the patio door, indulging in the warmth of the sunshine. I even contemplated moving my desk to that spot because I loved it! I leaned my back onto the glass and melted. Maybe I should just put a sweater on, but it distracted me.

See there! Another distraction! The very sentence I typed out caused me to run upstairs to grab a sweater. But now I AM much warmer. While upstairs innocently grabbing that sweater, it crossed my mind that the dryer will stop any minute now. Will I submit to the buzzer when it calls me up there? Probably. I hate wrinkles in my clothes.

I can tie pretty much anything to some verse in the Bible and this topic is no exception. As I wrote in my journal this morning, I saw a piece to my puzzle emerge.

See there! Mother Nature called and I ran upstairs again. Well, that was a necessary distraction that I couldn’t ignore, but while I was up there I could totally have ignored the call of my Satin Hands in a pocket on the back of the bathroom door. Before I knew it I was exfoliating my hands. While yes – they’re incredibly soft now, it could have waited till after I’m finished writing. But by then, I’d have forgotten all about it and my hands would have been ignored. It’s a losing battle, I tell ya!

I recently joined a group on Facebook, hosted by a friend of mine [shout out to Debbie Mussack!] called Focanize Support Group. In this group we’ll hopefully unearth some solutions for those of us who are focus and organizationally challenged.

The puzzle piece that emerged while journaling this morning has an odd shape, one that might be hard to analyze, but compelling to look at.

Tying this puzzle piece into scripture is easy, introducing it to my life might be a little harder.

The phrase “fullness of time” popped into my head concerning whatever I was writing about, and it bounced around until it landed in this topic of being unorganized and my lack of focus and discipline.

In the Bible we read it in places that say things like, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” – Galatians 4:4-5 KJV Meaning, when the time was right.

Intrigue swirled in my brain asking, “Hmmm. Is there a fulness of time when I will successfully address all my shortcomings and whatever is behind them will be resolved?” And THAT’S when it dawned on me in a realistic way that there are ISSUES behind my shortcomings! (Duh!)

Well, that bit of the puzzle piece fit into place nicely, but now it’s time to explore what those issues might be and deal with them. Yikes! This will be the challenging part. Is the time right? Is it now?

What tares need to be pulled up without disturbing the wheat? (Another biblical reference, see Matthew 13:24-30.)

What things in my mind need to be addressed without breaking my heart?

What are the procrastination traps that keep showing up in my path? What are the roots of the focus / organizational challenges in my life?

As I explore this with God holding my hand AND my heart, I’ll write updated blog posts to share my discoveries with you.

How do YOU handle the little dysfunctions in your life?

How do YOU get and stay organized? How do you get and stay disciplined and focused?

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens…” – Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

 

What Are You Looking At?

(photo courtesy of raviolisandwaterworks.com)

Have you seen one of these VW Bugs with eyelashes?

While driving home the other day I thought, “Lord, what should I blog about next?” There in front of me was a pretty Bug with eyes making me smile and ask, “What are you looking at?” And there I had my answer.

What are we looking at?

Do we see the rocks on the trail, or the flowers that adorn our way?

Are we looking for evidence for what we want to believe, or for reasons why we believe what we do?

Are we looking to our future with anticipation or carrying the weight of the conclusions that we’re bound to fail?

Are we looking for excuses to give up, or reasons to step forward?

There are so many directions to look, so many things to see in the various areas of our lives.

I think we generally see what we’re looking for, although occasionally we are surprised.

Sometimes when I reckon my checkbook, I may expect to be “in the red” but delight in finding out I’m not.

I may tentatively get on the scale, expecting to have gained a few pounds, but sigh with relief when I see that I haven’t.

But, if I’m looking for reasons to be lazy today instead of being productive and whittling away my to-do list, I’ll most likely be found sitting here playing on my laptop or perhaps even taking a nap. If I look to fail, I will.

Where is my focus? I’m focused on what I’m looking at.

When Dave and I go to the shooting range, if I’m not looking at my target, I’m not going to hit it. This applies to life in general, too. If I have no goals, how can I move forward? If I look at the television all day, nothing on my to-do list will get marked off by bedtime.

So, what’s the scope I’m looking through? At the shooting range, it’s easy; the scope is there on my gun. But, by what do I aim my life? Are there sights I can line up with; to live my life by?

Yes, indeed, I have available to me sights to line my life up within, a scope with which I can find my objectives.

God’s Word, commonly called the Bible, provides everything we need to live a life that’s filled with peace and will keep us in line to reach our goals, IF we apply what He says to us.

This is the scope through which we need to stay focused.

What are you looking at?

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him in his hand.”  Psalm 37:23 & 24  (KJV)

“Cast your burdens upon the LORD and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”  Psalm 55:22  (KJV)

Focus and Magnify

Magnification becomes more important to me the older I get. I need to magnify the words I read through the glasses on my face, now more than ever. Without the help of these magnificent image enhancers, I’d miss out on so much, especially words. The lenses clear up my misconceptions about what I see without them.

 

Magnification doesn’t actually make anything bigger, accept the appearance of what we’re looking at. Through a microscope, we can more clearly see microbes found in a drop of water, they appear larger so they’re more easily focused on, and seen as they truly are.

 

So make sense with me, of the cry of the psalmist, “O magnify the Lord with me, let’s exalt His Name together.” (Psalm 34:3)

 

My experience and ponderings lead me to believe that the more I focus on God, thus magnifying Him, the more clearly I see Him and what He’s doing in my life. The more I focus on my problems, the more magnified they become. So I can either play up my problems to the point where I can’t see anything else, or I can praise God, lifting up His Name in my home and in the marketplace and see Him move on my behalf.

 

When I magnify the Lord, as the psalmist invites, His presence appears larger to me, His image enhanced and His blessings more recognized; my purpose becomes more focused and aggravations that assail me fall to the blurrier parts of the picture, often falling off into oblivion.

 

Since I began wearing glasses some years ago, I notice more and more when driving down the street, how little I actually look at along the way. My car can take my mindless self to where I intended to go, occasionally, I admit, with some minor backtracking, almost as if I engage some sort of autopilot feature. What else do I miss out on when I’m not looking at it, or for it?

 

Come focus on the Lord with me, let’s lift up His Name everywhere!

Magnify the Lord?

I’d never thought about it before, but our pastor recently pointed out the meaning behind the scripture that tells us to magnify the Lord. How can we magnify God? What is bigger than God? How can we possibly make Him bigger?

But when I put a bug under a magnifying glass, he looks bigger - to me!

When I look through a telescope, the moon looks bigger – to me!

When I put my glasses on and begin to read, the words look bigger and clearer – to me!

When I dwell on a situation that looks to me like it could drag me under, I’m magnifying that problem, it looks bigger - to me!

And when I lift up my voice to God and praise His holy Name, I can clearly see that He is bigger than what I’m struggling with. This is how we magnify God, we make Him look bigger - to us - by focusing on Him and not the problems. By bringing Him into focus, we can see more clearly. We don’t need a bigger God; we need to see Him bigger. Adjusting the focus is something we do on our end. We choose to point our eyes to Him or to the problems that pull us down.

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. -Psalm 34:3 (KJV)

When we know that allowing God to become bigger in our own eyes makes our problems easier to trust Him with, we’ll, of course, want to invite everyone we know to magnify Him and exalt His Name together with us. It’s what love does – shares solutions!

Won’t you join me? Start with a simple praise song and allow yourself to focus on God today. In a few minutes you may have to readjust your focus. An hour from now you may have to remind yourself again. Keep fine tuning. Keep singing and praising and worshipping the King of Kings, till your focus is correct and you’re seeing things from His point of view.

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)