thankfulness – Page 4 – Ramblings of a Christian Father

Manual Focus

So many times in life we lose our focus. We need to adjust our lives back into focus, and get back in touch with what matters.

I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking through this post, and reflecting on the start of this year and what the new year means and the new beginnings that it brings. It is when we take our eyes off of what is most important, that we lose focus and lose our way. When you look through the Bible, you find many stories of true Bible heroes, that lost their focus, lost their way, and then eventually came back to the life God had called them to.

The first three that come to Samson, David, and Peter. Samson, lost his focus, blinded by the lies of Delilah and feeling that he could go about things on his own, was blinded literally by his enemies. But with his last breaths, he prayed, that God would bless him with power one last time, and defeated more Philistines in that moment as he crashed the temple. David, lost his focus to lust for Bathsheba, lost a child, and lost his way. But in the end learned from his mistakes, and changed. And the story of Peter walking on the water is to me the prime example of having, losing, and regaining focus, in a very short amount of time. As soon as Peter stepped out of the boat and had his eyes focused on Jesus he was walking along just fine. But it is the exact moment that he took his eyes off of Jesus, and looking at everything that was around him, he began to sink.

It is the times that we take our eyes off of what God has for us, and focus in on the chaos around us, that we begin to drown in life. We get so caught up in the stuff, that goes on day in and day out, that we forget the blessings that are right in front of us. We have to regain our focus on our families and on what God has for us. It is the minor adjustments that you wouldn’t think about that make the biggest changes in life. We must make sure that we are looking to God, and being fully focused on what He has for us.

January 30, 2013January 30, 2013 by corymcglone

Don’t worry, it will pass…

It’s a part of life, we all have things that we worry about. But there are only so many things that we can actually do something about.

This post has been running around in my head for a few weeks now, but wasn’t ready till last week, and I’m just now finding the time to get this all out. But we just finished up a series at Church called Courageous. We touched on the stories of David, Gideon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Benaiah, and Jonathan. Bible heros who didn’t go with what everyone else was doing and what was easy. They went against the grain of what everyone else was doing at the time.

The main point of all of these stories was that these people did not do what was expected of them. These are my favorite type of bible story, God using the unexpected to do amazing things. We all know the stories of David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God using young men to defeat a Giant that had everyone in the nation scared, and to change the mind and direction of a king. You see these people weren’t worried, because they knew what God was capable of, and what God had done in the past. It’s not a matter of knowing what God might do, it’s having faith in what you know he can do, and having the mentality to keep on going even if what God does is not in your favor.

One of our pastor’s main points in this series was to look back at your history book with God. Look back at a time in your life and look at what God did then, and now that your in the same situation, why wouldn’t God do the same for you now. So many times we get caught up in the situation that we don’t look back, or the situation is disguised as something completely different.

It’s these times in our lives that we have to just remember that God is always there and the He will always provide. There have been a few times in the past few years that I have just felt an absolute peace in my life and my families life. In all honesty, they were times when conventional wisdom would say, you should be concered, but I knew that God had worked this out this way for some reason. A few years ago this happened right after I had been laid off from job, and another is right now, when my wife quit her job to do her student teaching. Both of these times we were down to one income, now we have a child and we are on one income, but at no point have we had issues. We knew that God has is hand in both of these situations, and even though we couldn’t see it at first, the end results were amazing.

So my advice, to anyone reading this, if you can change the situation to make it better, go for it. If there is nothing you can do, pray for it.

September 30, 2012 by corymcglone

While you were on the Mountain top…

How many times have you been on top of the mountain, only to continue on and feel that you have fallen back down the mountain hitting every single large boulder on the way down? Just when you think you have everything figured out, something happens that you have to step back and figure out what just happened.

Matthew 17:2-4 ²As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. ³Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.⁴Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

So many times we dwell in the moment. We have great experiences, we want the experiences to last, we want to stay in the glory of that moment. But you can only stay in that moment for so long, then life catches up with you. You have to come back down the mountain at some point and keep living. And it is when we get back into real life, facing the real world, and all the of issues that come at us, that our faith is tested. It always seems that the closer we get to God, the stronger the attacks are against us. As we are spending time on the mountain top, it always seems that the enemy is building up forces along the road down the mountain.

“If the Devil, can’t make you bad, He’ll make you busy.”

“If the Devil can’t break you, He’ll break something around you”

When I think about the above statements, I keep thinking about the movie “UP”. In the opening scenes of the movie, you see Carl and Ellie, with a change jar that they keep trying to fill to make their way to Paradise Falls. As they get a decent amount into jar, Carl breaks his leg, they have a tire blow out, and they have a tree fall on the house, and then they have to break the jar and use all the money they had saved.

It is these kind of setbacks that cause many to loose faith. It is in these times that our faith gets tested, and that we have to remember to rejoice and thank God no matter what is going on. As you come down the mountain, it feels that you are going into a valley, but you will always come up out of that valley. If you look through the Bible, you can see many references to battles in valleys. One of my favorite references is from 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehoshaphat called for all of his subjects to pray and fast, then as they go into battle, he sends the singers first and as they start singing God shows that He is very much in control as the enemies all turned on each other. But my favorite part of this story, is that it took 3 days to come out of the valley with all of the spoils of the battle.

No matter what happens in life, remember that it is only for a moment, even if that moment seems to go on for a really long time. Just because things aren’t working out for you the way you want, keep in mind that God may have different plans that what we can see coming up. We never know what is in the valley, or what lies ahead, but proceed with an open mind and open heart for what God has for us. No matter how hard you get hit, no matter the struggles you are going through, keep relying on God, and things will eventually work out.

July 1, 2012 by corymcglone