Eyes on the Prize

This picture gives me smiles. A key element of focus is being able to adjust to the distance and to block out any distractions. Katie has a knack for this, and it serves her well in sports. She is able to keep her eye on the ball. This being said, focus is an area where we have been struggling lately.

Re-entry, even for a short period of time, poses numerous challenges for a missionary. Having just gotten “home” we find that we are no different. Housing challenges, work challenges, family challenges and support-raising challenges are added to the specific challenges of our calling. We find ourselves striving where we should be trusting, sitting back where we should be engaging, and regressing where we should be progressing.

It is easy to lose sight of the truth, especially when distractions crowd their way into our hearts.

Without dwelling in the past, we find ourselves needing to reach back and recall what God has done over the past few months. God’s faithfulness is sometimes easiest to see in the rear-view mirror.

This recollection of God’s movement is the testimony, not of ourselves or our own lives, but of God Himself, and the work of The Holy Spirit. These testimonies consist of the very power of God. Sure, we can dilute them with bragging and other prideful postures, but that is another story.

When we recall, in faith, the miracles we’ve witnessed these past 6 month— healings, salvations, and providence … to name a few — we invite the Holy Spirit to do it again. When we recount what He has done in the context of where we find ourselves now, we welcome His divine intervention.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” Philippians 3: 12-16

Pressing on toward Jesus, we let our testimony be His testimony and allow it to let us “hold true to what we have attained “(in Him). We keep our eye on the prize. We minister to the ones in front of us. We volunteer at places like the Capital City Rescue Mission. And, buoyed by the knowledge of his past workings in and through us, we look forward to the horizon in the nations that He’s called us to.

I don’t particularly remember how well Katie ended up hitting this ball. But that is beside the point. Her focus was right and her swing came from the depths of who she is!!