MISSING THE POINT

DAY 118: I am really not good with details.  I move through life so fast that only the really big issues catch my attention.  Big, however, is in the eye of the beholder.  Some people might think it is big to remember where you left your children; and I do - eventually.  Or at least someone reminds me.

Like the time I left my youngest son at church.  We got a call a half hour later asking if we were missing anything....or anyone.  I left the same child at a ice cream store on the way home from a family reunion in Oklahoma.  Thankfully, he is fast and we saw him chasing us down as we drove out of the parking lot.  Come to think of it... maybe it's that child and not me.

No, the evidence supports I am the one with the problem.  I spent an hour one afternoon convinced my 8th grade son had been kidnapped because he wasn't in the pick-up line after school.  I searched everywhere, called everyone and was on my way to the police station when he finally called to remind me I had given him permission to go home with a friend that day. To me, those are details... to other people they probably seem like critical information.  (Before you turn me in to Child Services, my kids all survived and are healthy happy college students these days - so don't worry.)

Those lapses, and so many more, were not because those details weren't important; it's just that I only seem to remember what I am focused on at any given time.  I was obviously focused on something else when I said yes to my son, and when I drove off and left the other one. (By the way, my daughter has declared herself "favorite" because I've never lost her.)  The point is, sometimes the things we focus on really are just a compelling distraction to what is important.

Today's Bible reading in John 5 is a contrast in focus.  Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and visits the pool of Bethsada on a Sabbath day.  This pool is a gathering spot for sick people, as the waters on occasion were said to bring healing.  Jesus passes a man who had been an invalid for 38 years and who was never able to get into the pool, he said because no one was there to help him.  Jesus doesn't make getting into the pool His focus. He simply asks the man if he wants to get well. 


^{John 5:8} Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. Instantly, the man was healed. He rolled up his mat and he began walking.  

But when the now-healed man walked past some religious leaders carrying the mat, they objected.  Without even mentioning that he had been healed, they picked their focus. 

¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 

They demanded to know who told him to carry his mat (not who healed him).  Funny thing, the guy never bothered to ask Jesus' name, and by then Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. He was only focused on being healed, not thanking the One who healed him or even knowing who He was.  Later that same day Jesus found him again and told the guy to turn his focus on living the right kind of life.  Instead, now that they guy had Jesus' name(still no thanks recorded), he ran back to tell the religious leaders.  Making no mention of the miracle, they find and begin to harass Jesus for directing "work" on the Sabbath.  

Jesus answers them but He doesn't focus on the distraction of the mat or their complaints. 


“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."


In working on earth, Jesus kept His focus on His Father in Heaven.  He watched for where God was working and He joined Him.  He didn't get sidetracked by the urgent, the flashy, the difficult, the objectors, the danger, the sacrifice, the good deeds... He focused on what God was doing; that was His cue to get involved and join God.  


Keeping my focus right in my family is only part of my challenge.  I can so easily focus on the wrong things even as I am striving to serve God.   The temptation is there to do what I want or think needs to be done rather than seeing where God is working and joining in... or worse, starting right and loosing my focus when I run into distractions like, time, resources, people, inconvenience, conflict, challenges, pride; even simply accomplishing the task can take my focus off "what my Father is doing."   

At such times I need to remember one more thing Jesus said to those "religious" guys who missed the miracle looking at the mat and the day on the calendar: "I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing."  

 If Jesus can't do anything by Himself, I certainly cannot.  My only hope of making an impact in the Kingdom of God is to keep my focus on the details that matter: what God is doing!


Day 118 of 365
1 Samuel 1
1 Samuel 2:1-21
John 5:1-23
Psalm 105:37-45
Proverbs 14:28-29