I can’t imagine ever regretting being in full, focused pursuit of Him.
From experience, I know that putting my hand to the plow and not looking back is hard. We look back without even thinking. We start our walk with God and find it easy to keep our eyes looking forward and on Him. But with time, without realizing it, we start looking back. We start getting distracted from the forward pursuit of following Him.
If we had to sit down and write a list of those distractions I expect that we would write things that we would need to give up in order to achieve any goal. But if we allowed ourselves to dig deeper, our list would involve our aspirations and our dearest loved ones.
Giving up something (physically, mentally) to show our dedication to Jesus is hard. For me, putting Him ahead of the love I have for my husband, and my sweet daughter is one of my hardest daily disciplines.
But we serve a God who is so deserving of that kind of dedication. He is for us. He is not asking too much to say that need to keep our eyes on Him. I can remember times in my life that I got distracted from plowing ahead in Kingdom work. When I look back at those times, my life wasn’t full. It wasn’t tidy.
Being asked to put everything and everyone second, and a much further back second, sometimes feels like too much to ask. I am someone who genuinely loves people. For me, my list of things that distract me from a full focus on Him would be made up of people. It is difficult for me to picture Jesus wanting me to change that since I believe He gave me my love for people. However, Luke 9:57-62 tells me that is exactly what He would say. He would and does tell me to put my eyes on Him and by doing so He is able to use the love I have for people for the Kingdom. He is able to do so much more with all my energy, time and talents than I could ever do alone. He is able to fill my life so much better than I could ever do alone.
Keeping focused in a world of constant and often justified distraction is hard. But I can’t imagine ever regretting being in full, focused pursuit of Him.
