Truth: I Can Be All There
By Jon Walker
Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 1 Timothy 4:15 (NLT)
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You’ve probably heard the story of the guy who was on a long drive with his wife, and as she talked, his mind began to drift.
They drove for about thirty minutes until he realized she’d stopped talking, and a feeling began to sink within him as he vaguely registered she’d just asked him a question.
He looked at her and she said, “So, what do you think I should do?”
He took a deep breath, and said, “Well, you have several options . . . I mean, you could . . . it depends on . . .”
His wife glared at him and said, “You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?”
Our objective-in-Jesus is to be fully present in the present. “Wherever you are, be all there,” is the way Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary phrased it.
We look life full in the face and engage all our senses in what is around us, especially the people we encounter.
We don’t let the past distract us, and we don’t let the future worry us; we remain focused in the present. We value those around us enough to put down the newspaper, look up from the computer, turn off the TV, and really listen to them. Our focus on the present teaches us to be sensitive to the needs, hurts, likes, dislikes, and even joys of those around us.
And, it gives us the capacity to spot where God is at work so we can join him there. We engage faith in the present, and in faith we trust God to cover our past and look out for our future. He comes behind and before us.
“It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to live by faith,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who later was hung by a rope supplied by Adolf Hitler.
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.
