Correcting Focus

It's a fact of human nature:  we each want the thing we haven't got.  I know I do.  There's something I've been praying desperately about for years, and the answer has been the same every time:  No.

God isn't letting us down when he says no.  There's always a reason, a bigger picture that our little eyes can't see.  And he always has something else, something better, prepared already for us. 

So when it seems there's absolutely nothing we can do, there is actually still something we can do:  We can say thank you gratefully (difficult though that may be) and we can re-assess where we stand because when we are so focused on what we do not have, we may be ignoring the treasure that is already in front of us.  Instead of looking down, we need to look up and then to look around.  We need to face forward so that we can run the race that is set before us.

Our choices place us where we stand now.  But we don't have to remain stuck in position.  We need to be ready for the good things that are headed our way, and we need to get moving.

If the world seems impossible to you today (and sometimes, quite honestly, it seems that way to me, too), I encourage you to look forward, to reach out, to dare to hope.  Good stuff is on the way, and the creation of that goodness begins within each of us.   

~*****~

editing.....I think things through by writing them out because, like so many people, I can't see clearly what is right in front of me.  It was only after I posted this that I realized that I have visited this subject over and over again recently.  So, even though I wasn't aware of it myself, this is what the Half-Year Holiday has had me thinking about and there is an answer in it. 

I am reminded of a little story I heard on a TV show years ago.

A man died and went to heaven. 

But he wasn't very happy. 

God asked him why. 

 

The man said, "Why didn't you let me win the lottery while I was alive?  I prayed and prayed and prayed every single day. 
But you never let me win."

 

God said, "You could have helped me out. 

You should have bought a ticket."

We can't just sit and think and wait for change.  We have to move in the direction of the change that we hope will happen. 

Life is good.  God is gracious.  His strength is perfected in our weakness.