Keeping Focused

It is important that we keep focused on God. We have so many things that can turn our eyes away from Him. If we truly do not want to be distracted we must constantly remember to keep focused on Him.

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Virtual Chapel 10-11-2005

Devotional on Keeping Focused

Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the LORD. 6They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. 9 The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse- who can understand it? I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.
- Jeremiah 17:5-10
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Today’s scripture talks about two sides of a coin, blessed and cursed. The blessed are those that trust in the Lord; they are sustained in times of danger. The cursed are those that go it alone; they look elsewhere for strength. At first when we read this passage, we think that this describes two different groups of people. When put in its original context, we discover that it is not two different groups of people, but the same group that experiences both. The Israelites knew what it was like to be blessed; God had done so much for them. They were once a great nation, but a series of events had led to their current dismal state. How had this happened? Jeremiah says that the Israelites forgot what really mattered. They lost their focus on God and instead put their faith in human hands. Because desperate times call for desperate measures, God was using their current situation as a potter works a lump of clay into a useful piece of pottery. Making a desirable piece of pottery often takes more than one attempt. The potter molds the clay again and again, building it up and taking it down, until the desired end is reached.

God does this in a similar fashion with us. God wants us to prosper, to be like a tree planted in water, but we often look for other ways to advance without God. We think that we can do a better job. When we lose our focus on God, we become like shrub in the desert. In those moments when we find ourselves with our backs turned to God and knee-deep in despair, God calls out for us to refocus and recommitment to a life with God as our focus and source of blessings. For many of us, we go through this cycle of focusing and refocusing over and over again. God doesn’t give up on us, but is patient and sits at the potter’s wheel carefully molding and shaping our lives in a way that will be useful to God. That is what God is doing to Israel in this passage and that is what God is doing with us today.

For more information

• Rev. Leigh Martin
  (770)720-5634 
  LSM@reinhardt.edu