Thursday, April 26, 2012

Focused Obedience

Over the past few months I have been slowly working my way through a book by Floyd McClung titled "You See Bones, I See an Army: Changing the way we do church." I purchased the book during my DTS and for some reason it had been shelved for later reading. I don't think I have ever in my life taken so much time to read a book but this is not one for me to just breeze through. There is so much good stuff in here and I've been really taking the time to digest it and reflect upon it.

Just the other day I started part three: Focused Obedience. The first chapter in this section is titled Watch out for the Camels and oh my! God has been speaking to me through this chapter so much.  A lot of it is stuff that I already knew about myself but it's put in such a way that I feel like for the first time instead of just seeing that I have problem in this area, I actually feel like I see ways to make a change.



Focus has always been a weak point for me. If you were ask everyone who has ever known me to describe me, I can guarantee not a single one of them would use the words focused or disciplined. I am a dreamer and a visionary and one of the things that typically comes along with that is a lack of focus and a tendency to jump from one idea to another. That is so evident in my life for the past few years. I have been in Madison WI for almost a year now and it's the longest amount of time I've spent in one place since 2008.

I like moving from place to place, idea to idea, but I have had little focus and therefor little effectiveness. In this chapter Floyd says, "It is the woman or man who knows what God has given her or him to do in life and remains focused on that who will receive a reward at the end of life." Later on he poses the question, "Do you know the main thing in your life, and are you focused on it?"  This really got me to stop and think about what I'm doing and why. I saw very clearly that I have not been focused. I have not taken the time to really ask of God what my main thing is and to grab hold of that and run after it.

At one point in the chapter he says, "Learning to serve another person's vision or ministry, learning to be faithful in our service under someone else's leadership, is a prerequisite for being trusted by God to lead others."  I believe God is calling me into a season of focused service. I believe that whatever this next season holds it will be a time where I will be serving another person's ministry and will be under leadership that will help me to become more focused and disciplined.

What about you? Do you know what God has called you to focus on and are there areas in your life where He is asking you to be more focused and disciplined?

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that's huge... you're in this for the long haul, and long haul people get Him as their prize.

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