Wednesday, November 9

Focus On The Road In Front Of You

"Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly in front of you " Proverbs 4:25


Our youngest son has his driver's permit now and so this adds a "hat" to my name, I'm now a Driving Instructor! This past couple of months the 'hats' I have worn have been many. I have been a Soccer mom, a Stage mom and now a Driving Instructor!  I get so much wisdom from the book of Proverbs for my life and  from Proverbs 4:25 it says, "Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly in front of you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; keep your foot from evil." When you think about it almost everything we do in everyday life mandates us to stay on track and focus in front of us. Everything from driving, competitive sports, hiking, bike riding and much more. In driving, the moment we look over to the left or to the right literally anything can happen to us in that moving vehicle, we have no choice but to keep our main gaze in front of us for the danger is too risky not to. We have a very large front view window to see out of and a very small 'rearview' window to keep in check what is going on behind us. I think we can learn a lot from that in our lives. 

In life the window in front of us should be our main focus for our journey ahead of us. Our past is still in view like a rearview window's size for a reason. We have our memory that is always there, we learn from it and we can glean occasional lessons from our past triumphs, failures and life lessons but we are not to stay too long veering out that small rear window, but just occasionally take a glimpse just as in driving on a road. There is a quote I recently heard that I love and it goes along with this theme today; "The past isn't the past if it is still affecting your future." I know that a lot of you will say that that is true but that a lot of your past that is still affecting your future isn't your doing or you fault. This may be true but 9 times out of 10 I have found that people become so accustomed to their past affecting their future that they don't know anything else but to stay there with it. 

Hopelessness is learned, therefore hopefulness must also be learned. It is a process of daily putting aside the things that have taken front and center in our lives and training our minds and hearts for something more, something better. Maybe you have lead a life full of mistaken thinking from your past due to others. In Isaiah, chapter 43:18-19 it says so beautifully, " Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it will spring up; will you be able to see it?" Also, in Phillippians 2:13 is says "God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good purpose". You have a purpose, your past may be a part of that plan, will and purpose. It is up to us to see some of the past are part of the future, only if we can let go of the hopelessness of the past to hopefulness.



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