I've seen a lot of posts about resolutions, goals, and words for 2017. I don't know if I have ever chosen a word for the year and stuck with it the entire year, but the word that has been bouncing around in my brain for the past few days is Focus:
1. the center of interest or activity.
2. the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition.
Focus is a tricky concept. We are all busy and it is easy to lose focus on what matters when we try to focus on too many things. There are things in life that we need to do, but they can't be the center of our interest. I can't ignore the piles of laundry or expect my house to clean itself, but it can't be the most important aspect of my life.
Les taught an awesome Sunday school lesson about Jonah to kick off 2017. The book of Jonah is short and most of the lessons we hear are from chapter two - Jonah's time in the belly of the great fish. I have always found chapter four to be extremely interesting. The city of Nineveh had a 120,000 soul revival and Jonah was very angry. I have never understood what was wrong with him! He was not only angry, but he sat and pouted. "It is better for me to die than to live."
The conclusion of the book sums it all up, "Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"
Jonah had a greater love for a gourd that provided shade than he did for a city that was perishing. Les finished the class with this question, "Do we care more about materialism or personal comfort than we do about the thousands of lost souls around us?"
In all our resolutions, goals, plans, and desires for 2017, may be never lose focus of the thousands of lost souls around us.
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