Distracting Options

I will never forget my morning walks with Bill Ore in Saskatchewan, Canada. 

First, Bill Ore is one of the most influential people in my life and I only spent a grand total of 10 days with him in my whole life. 

 While at this camp, we took a morning walk every day, just Bill and I.  For the most part, it was a quiet walk, looking for deer, listening to birds sing, and saying some quiet prayers.  But, it never failed, during the walk we would discuss something very important to Bill.  Some days, he would give me advice; some days he would share his heart, his weaknesses, and his desire for me to pray for him; and some days he just shared some good stories.  He had this way of making me feel so special and important. 

 I will never forget on one particular walk, we were discussing the church and the Christian life.  Bill looked at me and said, “Scott, keep your eyes upon Jesus and not upon man.  Man will surely fail you, but Christ will never fail you.”  Those words have saved me from bitterness as I have watched too many pastors and leaders fail Christ and the ministry they represent by making mistakes that any person can potentially make.

 However, beyond that, his words have helped me understand that I must keep my eye on the goal, one single objective.  I must keep my eye on Jesus and keep walking to him.  If I don’t, I’m likely to begin looking at the options around me.  I might be tempted to let the options distract me from my goal of living a life for Jesus Christ.  By taking my eye off the goal and focusing on other options, I open the door for me to make disappointing mistakes as well. 

 I believe Satan does everything he can to show us all the other options in this world in order to entice us to take our eyes off Jesus.  He knows if we start looking at the other options, we will not be as effective in our walk with Christ. 

 In my new favorite book, “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely, he proves that we humans have a hard time staying focused on one option.  We like to keep our options open and thus we usually miss out on what is best because we keep flipping back and forth to other options just to make sure they are not better. 

Options that keep me from staying focused on Jesus:

-         Money

-         Love/Sex

-         Career

-         Power

-         Education

 What I have learned is that all these options are a part of my journey.  However, they cannot be my ultimate goal.  The above options will ultimately disappoint, but Jesus Christ will never disappoint. 

Stop Clowning Around: 

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this 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 heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. (Philippians 3:12-16)