Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Eyes on the prize

Last night while I was reading from the book of Galatians I noticed something that really stuck out to me,

1Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by
Jesus Christ
and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—


Our Senior Pastor announced on Sunday that he had accepted a position at another church. This introduced all sorts of uncertainty in our lives, but God, knowing my human tendencies, practically screamed this verse at me Sunday night, letting me see that He has everything under control. Then this morning I came across this story from ESPN's Page 2:

Studies of crashes during aircraft landings under difficult
circumstances, he said, showed that pilots who made
bad mistakes
when approaching an airfield and crashed,
but lived to tell the tale, reported that they had been
focused on avoiding obstacles
. Pilots who made
difficult landings without incident reported they had
focused solely on the runway. Business and artistic success,
Costello continued, follow the same pattern. Setbacks result
from constantly trying to avoid obstacles, worrying about
what might go wrong. Achievement results from keeping
your eyes glued to the prize and endlessly repeating to
yourself, "I can do this." Or, as I once wrote, "Keep your
gaze in the distance, and though you will stumble, you
will reach your destination."


God is in control of our lives. He directs the events that happen and He is in everything we are doing. I'll leave you today with this thought from the apostle Paul:

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or
praiseworthy—think about such things.


If we keep our eyes on Heaven, we will not be shaken either.

-Jeff-