LIVE A LIFE OF NO REGRETS!!: Eyes on the Prize

Quote from "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss

"She says I shall now have one mouth more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other dear darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!"

Friday, November 8, 2013

Eyes on the Prize

Earlier I woke my Christopher up and told him to get a shower because he had a doctor appointment this morning with his brother Michael. Christopher is four years old. His first response was "Noooo, I don't want to go to the doctor." I told him I understood, but we needed to go. As he was dressing he asks me, "What are they going to do, Mom?" I told him he was to get a few shots. He jumps up and says, "Yes, I am getting stickers!". I said pretty incredulously, "okay, let's do this."

Sure enough, he gets up on the table in the office and he pulls up his pants legs for his shots. (We could not get those pants down for a million stickers!) He gets three shots without making the slightest face or flinch. As I talk to the nurse, he did get up and sneak over to his older brother and whisper to him that the first one really burned. We check out, he gets his stickers, and we drive merrily out of the office. Wow, that was way too easy, I thought. Then I got it! He kept his eyes on the prize and didn't let his mind think about what he was going through. He just thought if he did what he needed to do that he would get his sticker. He was focused.

Ahhhh, to have the faith of a child (Matthew 18:3). When I go through trials, tribulations, struggles, sad times, hard times, etc., what do I focus on. Do I have the inward hook and focus on "woe is me"? That is probably my first natural reaction. How will this get paid? Will I be healed from cancer? Will our marriage survive this struggle? Will my child make wise decisions? Will I always battle this problem? Will my struggles consume my every thought? Or will I be like Christopher and keep my eyes on the prize? Hebrews 12:2 says to "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

As I discussed with a friend my thoughts on the morning, she said "but it's harder when you are an adult and the problems are bigger and much more difficult." I said to her perhaps. But what bigger problem does the average four year old face than the fear of getting a shot? Why should we behave any differently as adults? The Lord doesn't make it harder for us as we grow, but easier because we can read His Word. His Spirit lives within us. His Word speaks to us as we encourage ourselves with It. Our circumstances should never determine our joy. James says in chapter 1 to "Count it all joy, my brothers,when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." I want to grow up and be like Christopher and keep my eyes on the Prize!

V ideo: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus