A Pebble in My Shoe
/A few weeks ago my husband used an illustration in a sermon that has stuck with me. He held a dime up and looked at it far away, it didn’t block much of his view. The closer he brought it to his eye however, the more of his view was blocked. The more and more he focused in on the small little dime, the more his vision became skewed. It is so often the small things in life that can trip us up when we allow them to become bigger than they really are.
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down, it’s the pebble in your shoe”. Muhammad Ali
It is easy to magnify the small things in life, the hard things, the difficult things, and the things that hurt my feelings. In the midst of doing so, however, I block my view of literally everything else! I woke up this morning with a question on my heart.
What do I do when it gets hard and the feelings I am feeling make me uncomfortable?
The response of the Holy Spirit was simply this, “you just keep going”. It really is that simple, because what choice do I have? Quitting has never been an option for me, so the only option is to keep going, keep moving forward. Take all the feels, the ones that hurt and the ones I would normally push down, way down, to keep from feeling them and hand them over to God. I have come to understand that the only way to truly deal with emotions and feelings that are too big for me to handle is to give them over to God.
It amazes me how something so great can happen, so big and so fun. Something that honors God and gives him glory, then in the midst of it one tiny little bump, one tiny negative, can take all the focus off God. That is the goal of our enemy, to take glory away from God. It is an obvious attempt to take what belongs to God and turn it away from Him altogether.
Over the last few days, multiple times, I have heard this scripture,
10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
John 10:10
Here is the truth, we have an enemy in this life. Whether we choose to pay attention or not, our enemy is real. The enemy of God lives and lurks around on this earth and his goal is to steal, kill and destroy. If we open our eyes and pay attention, we would notice our enemy is successful in doing that in so many lives. He is attracted to the spirit of God on the inside of believers. The enemy of the living God comes into our lives and he magnifies the pain, the offense, he whispers lies into our ears and makes us see things that are not there and believe lies that he has created. This is not our God! My God has come to give me a rich and satisfying life. How does that happen? Only when I magnify what is good, what is lovely, what is God honoring. Even in the midst of the other stuff that is going on, I can choose to focus my attention on what is good in my life and what is honoring to God.
“8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8
What wise counsel Paul gives us. In the midst of a world which is full of distractions and opportunities to look away from God, Paul reminds us to think about these things, whatever is excellent and worthy of praise.
My question then is this, how do we continue to think on things that honor God? Only by surrendering our thoughts and heart to God. We do this by worship, by prayer, and by honoring God with the words that come out of our mouth!
Today I choose to fix my eyes on Jesus. I am choosing to honor Him with my thoughts and my words. I am focusing on the lives being changed through Mercy City. I am choosing to focus on the stories of those people who are allowing God to restore their lives and bring healing to the broken places. The rest of it, everything else, I am handing it over to Jesus. All I can do today, is just keep going.
If you read this today, let that be an encouragement to you, just keep going and fix your eyes on Jesus!
