Episode 28 - Loosing Focus

When I first moved to Papua New Guinea, my world changed in a day. Everything was new, everything was different and there was a lot to learn and cope with. It could have been easy at that time to decide that it was too hard, to give up and to take my eyes off God. But I didn’t. In fact everything that I had to face came easily to me. Why? Because I always kept my eyes on God. Because every new big thing reminded me that I couldn’t do this, that I was out of my depth, so I looked to Him for strength and peace, and He provided faithfully. I have said before that it is in times like these that I need God most of all, and no doubt I will say it again. It is very easy to say, but I wish I wouldn’t, because it’s not true. There isn’t a time in my life that I don’t completely need God. So the idea of needing God more sometimes than others is redundant. That would be implying that there are times that I don’t need him, or that I need less of Him.

I couldn't think of a picture relevant to the topic, so I thought I would

 show you what happens when my head gets full of thoughts...

After a bit of time being in PNG life settled down and there weren’t so many big things. Just life. Lots to do, there’s always lots to. Nothing big, nothing special to being in PNG or doing the work that I’m doing just busy life. And as life became normal, in the busyness I started to take my eyes off God. It’s not that I stopped loving Him or that I loved Him any less. It’s not that I thought that I didn’t need him anymore. And in His faithfulness He never stopped guiding me. But slowly, over time I spent less and less time reading my bible and talking to Him and worshipping Him. And when I did do these things I got distracted more easily. And it changed me. It was slow, subtle, and I didn’t notice. I slowly became duller and more distracted, less patient and more easily frustrated, but more than that, I became less me. And I didn’t notice. Over time, I started to feel restless, like something was missing, and subconsciously like I was searching for something, but I didn’t know what it was that I needed. I thought that maybe I needed to rest more, or be more sociable, or drink less caffeine or even if I needed to be thinking about doing something else with my life for God. The Irony! The one thing that God clearly told me to do, I was thinking that maybe I should do something else and in my mind, to do it for Him!

What happens when you look at your feet

Eventually (this whole thing probably only lasted a couple of weeks) the patently obvious slapped me in the face and I realised how distant I had let myself become from God. I sat down and told God all about it (not that He didn’t already know), I said sorry and that I didn’t want to be distant from Him. And I changed. I became brighter, lighter, and happier (not that I had realised that I wasn’t) I became full of life again, and once more, I became me. When I learnt to snowboard, I was imparted with some great wisdom; look where you want to go. Keep your head up with your eyes forward and you will go forward. Look at the ground that you are standing on and you’ll end up in a big heap on the floor. I only want to go closer to God, so I will keep my eyes on Him.