The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil:

He shall preserve thy soul.

Psalms 121:7, KJV

 

Have you seen the remake of the movie, "The Karate Kid"? In it, the karate teacher scolds his student for not having focus. He is teaching his student a lesson in balance by having him do his workout while standing in the bow of a rowboat that is rocking back and forth. The student immediately claims that he does have focus, shortly before he loses his attention and is hurled into the water. His teacher then gives the classic line, "Your focus needs focus".

 

I think sometimes our focus needs focus. We get so distracted by the seemingly consequential that we miss the most important. So, today, we want to look at the things that truly matter the most.

 

In the 127th Psalm quoted from above, the writer begins by saying, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD, who maketh the heaven and the earth." The truth contained in the passage is vital for all of those who would seek peace in life. Life is chock-full of things that will make us anxious and afraid, should we ever lose focus of the fact that God is in control, and that it is He who will keep us safe from all dangers.  

 

I believe that remembering such truths is critical for us to function in the times in which we live. People seem to be meaner now, than when I was younger. Times seem to be harder. Sometimes it seems that people don't even like each other anymore so we have to keep vigilant against the things that they might do to harm us. These types of distractions can cause us to lose sight of the bigger picture if we are not careful. And what is the "bigger picture? Just what we have been reading from the Psalms today. That God is our helper. And since He is the One who created everything - including us, His help is sufficient.

 

This truth is vital for us to remember when things get tough. It is true that this old world does seem to be getting meaner and harder to live in. Some days it seems that it is difficult just to make a decent living. At other times we feel threatened from the events that are happening as well as from the people who are around us. And, like the karate student on the rocking boat, it is hard to keep our focus on the task at hand. So, just when we claim to be focusing, we are thrown into the tumultuous waters that surround us.

 

These are the moments that we need to remember our Helper and His promise. It is God Himself who will preserve us from evil, even to the point of preserving our soul. So, if we can focus on the things that we are here for - things such as serving God and helping our fellow man get through the troubles that they are going through, it will be then that life becomes bearable. This world has always had distractions and challenges, and Satan and his children seem to be very good at using them to trip us up. But, if we can keep in focus the things that truly matter, then we will do fine. God really does watch over our soul, and He really will preserve it.

 

All we have to do is to lift up our eyes unto the hills and see His great protection. We are going to heaven if we will but remain faithful to God, and we want to help as many people as we can to get to heaven themselves. It will not always be easy, and the storms of life will sometimes distract us. But if we can keep first things first and if we can keep our focus, then we will do just fine. God will preserve your soul and keep you from all evil if you will let Him. Once we have this focus, I believe that we will find that our lives are filled with incredible joys and blessing. And then there will be heaven!  

 

 

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.

Proverbs 19:21, ESV

The LORD will fulfil His purpose for me.

Psalms 138:8, ESV

 

Are you doing what God put you here to do? Are you achieving the things that you know you could if you just put your heart into it? Are you living the life that God expects you to live? These are the types of questions that each man or woman will eventually ask themselves, and answer, if they are ever to become what God wants them to be. In short, there must come a point in the life of each person when they honestly begin to look at whether they are living up to their potential,

 

In real estate it is called "highest and best use". I appraised over 2,000 houses before I changed the direction of my life, and in each one of those appraisals I had to determine and state the highest and best use of the property I was appraising. Since I was a residential appraiser and was usually working for a residential lender, their particular interest was if the highest and best use of the property was in fact residential. If not, they did not even want to consider making a loan on it. So, if the property had a highest and best use as say a commercial or industrial use, then the property could not be considered for their investment portfolio. It wasn't that the property couldn't be used as a home, but since it was being underutilized, they didn't want to be involved with it.

 

After about a dozen years of this career, I began to question my own highest and best use. I enjoyed appraising and was able to make a comfortable living at it, but it dawned on me that I might not be living up to the potential that God may have given me, and that made me uncomfortable. The reason for this discomfort was likely due to the things I had been reading from the Bible. Things like the two verses above that talk about purpose. It was true that I had been going after my own plans in life - plans that seemed perfectly fine - but were my life's pursuits the ones that God desired for me? I began to wonder if He might have a different purpose for my life.

 

Anyway, the more I read the Bible, the more I realized that there were a lot of practical truths contained in it that could genuinely help people if they would only live by these truths - myself included! I had already been working with the teens in the church I attended and has even filled in preaching from time to time. My wife and I already had a number of people in our home for Bible studies and we really enjoyed these studies. There is a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that the Word of God really can change people's lives, and we were delighted to have a part of that process.

 

The quick end to a long story was that I eventually came to the conclusion that I might not be living the best life I could, so I began to explore the possibility of changing direction and becoming a preacher. I did not know if I would be a good preacher or not, but I did want to find out if this was a direction that God would be pleased with for my life - so I went in that direction. And I have never regretted that decision.

 

The passage that David wrote in the 138th Psalm should give us all confidence whenever we are genuinely seeking God's will for the direction of our lives. In that Psalm, David pointed out that God would fulfil His purpose for us. In David's situation, God selected him as the next king of Israel. The fact that at the time David was an unknown shepherd boy who had been tending his father's flock of sheep made no difference to God. Since God chose David to be king, David would be king someday as long as he remained faithful to God. And David did become king!

 

So, how does a shepherd boy become a king? The answer in David's case is clearly given in Scripture: If it is God's will and His purpose for you, it will be done... if you will do your part.

 

How about you? Are you living up to God's purpose in your own life? I suppose none of us can ever really know until the Day of Judgment, but we can at least try to do our best to honestly find out what God wants us to be doing, and then to do it to the best of our ability. And, though we might be wrong, at least we are trying to be right. And if we are trying to do the right thing - all the time praying for God's will in doing so, I believe we will have the best shot at living up to the potential that God has for us as we live the best life we know how for God and Jesus.

 

Are you living your best life? It's a question that is worth considering, don't you think? 

 

  

Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments!

He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid...

Psalms 112:1, 7-8, ESV

 

Bad news! We all fear it. When Job learned his bad news, from the loss of his livestock to the death of his children, he said, "What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened". I suppose we all have memories of such days, when news came to us that was almost too much to handle. Those who have lost loved ones unexpectedly will understand, as will those who have received the results of an important medical test that revealed the very thing they had been dreading. Bad news seems to dominate the headlines in the papers and on our favorite channels. Bad news travels fast, hits hard, and lingers on. 

 

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world in which we did not have bad news? We have all had times when we wished that were so. Days in which we told our friends and associates that we didn't want to hear one more bad thing - that if we did, we might explode. And that might not have been too far off, for we have all witnessed people who just seemed to come apart at the seams when the bad news had gotten to the point that they could no longer handle it.

 

Many people turn to drugs and alcohol at times such as this. They get to the point of addiction that they just cannot wait until their workday is through so that they can escape the world's problems with their favorite beverage, or their drugs - prescription or otherwise. Some of these folks just sink farther and farther into this escape until their entire lives are dominated by new fears, those that are associated with the hopeless addictions that have resulted from their bad choices.

 

Thanks for the cheery news, you might be thinking at this point but hang on for we are getting to the good stuff right now. Or, more accurately, we started with the good part right at the beginning. The inspired writer of the 112th Psalm provided the solution to bad news some three thousand years ago, and it begins with a thankful heart that praises the Lord. He goes on to reveal that the one who fears God and who greatly delights in His commandments is not afraid of bad news. Unlike those unstable people who "crack" at the point of receiving more bad news than the can handle, the Psalmist says that this man is firm - that his heart is steady!

 

And it is not because he does not feel the weight of the bad news. We read in the book of Job that even this righteous man was affected by the pressure of his bad news. It was just that he was not crushed! At a point of desperation and despair, Job's wife went so far as to suggest that he "curse God and die". Job's answer should provide insight for us all, for his response was the question, "Shall we accept good from God, but not bad?" Of course, Job was to later learn that the source of his troubles was Satan, not God, but his attitude at that point was the correct one, for he realized even in the midst of his grief that God was able to rescue.

 

It is this attitude that is vital to our being able to survive the hardships of life. Combine that with the other "secret" that the Psalmist revealed, and we have the key to handling bad news. We must delight in God's commandments. And the source of those commands is the Bible, so we need to make sure that we are reading it. How often, you might be wondering? Well, look at it this way: Which of the days of your life would you like to be free from the fear of bad news? I think we would all agree on this answer: We would like to be free from the fear of bad news every day. And that is the solution, isn't it? We need the message of God's Holy Word every single day!

 

For those who fear God do not have to fear anything else. Those who do not fear God have to be afraid of everything. 

 

One last important point: The passage above does not say we will not have bad news, simply that we do not have to fear it. What's the difference? The difference is this: Fear hampers our needed response to how we handle bad news. Fear has a way of "freezing" us into inaction. Even worse, into poor reactions that so often result in worse news than the bad news we were afraid of in the first place. But the man and woman of God do not have to fear bad news, for they fear God. They love His commandments; therefore, they seek them out on a daily basis. By doing so, they receive words of hope and comfort and love.

 

And that's a pretty good trade, don't you think? When we exchange our unreasoned fear of bad news for the pleasant fear of God, it changes our entire lives. Is it any wonder that the writer of this Psalm starts out with these words: "Praise the LORD!" 

 

 

Sow your seed in the morning, and in the evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.

Ecclesiastes 11:6, NIV (1978)

 

Stay in your lane! This is a phrase we here more often each day. It's perhaps a bit more polite than telling people to mind their own business, but just a little. The fact is that most people have you pegged and want to make sure that you stay in the hole that they believe your shape of peg fits. Maybe that's why our college entrance scores have continually gone down over the past 50 years or so. "Kids can only learn so much" and "No child left behind" have resulted in all of our kids achieving less than they should. Some will argue that this is not so, that grade point averages are up over the years. The sad truth is that the cause of these higher G.P.A. scores has largely been a result of lower standards rather than higher learning.

 

Stay in your lane is almost a religious-level belief in much of our business world. Men and women who in the past were encouraged to shown curiosity beyond their own departments in order that they might advance and be of more use to the company are now often encouraged to not worry about what is going on outside of their immediate area of responsibility. However, instead of achieving the goal of an "assembly line" level of productivity by having people focus only on the task at hand, it has typically resulted in lower quality and a dumbed down workforce.

 

We have seen the same thing in the church for far too many years. Empty philosophies such as "Don't study for yourself, leave it to the experts" or "No one but the highly trained and church ordained personnel can really understand the Bible" have retarded genuine spiritual knowledge and growth for centuries. Such an encouragement towards ignorance should shock us, but most people are a little lazy at heart, so the encouragement to not become too inquisitive about "God's mysterious ways" is well received by most.

 

So, whether we are looking at things like education, work, or our eternal souls, most people are more than content to "stay in their lane" and let someone else do the heavy lifting. If our hollowed out lives result in lower standards and inferior levels of achievement, then that is all right because it fits into the new world order of bare minimum effort that seems to appeal to the masses. 

 

My encouragement to you is to get out of your lane!

 

By that, I don't mean meddling in areas that you don't have any business in in the first place; rather, I mean that we need to get away from our welfare mentality of doing as little as possible and letting someone else take care of everything else. This has resulted in lower I.Q.s, inferior products, a watered-down church, and a government that is primarily populated by parasitic individuals who do not have our best interests at heart.

 

I believe that it is more than time to get out of our lanes and start noticing what is going on around us. For Christians, it will begin with reading our Bibles so that we do not have to have our eternities staked on the good intentions of our religious leaders who are often more interested in maintaining the party line of denominationalism than they are in preaching the truth in love. For parents, it will mean carefully selecting which school your child will attend, and if a suitable one cannot be found then taking the difficult path of home-schooling which will take an absolute commitment to for it to be effective. For employers, it will mean hiring people who have a keen sense of curiosity that is combined with a loyalty to the company brand. For citizens, it will mean becoming familiar with the founding documents and laws and holding your elected leaders to them.

 

Our world has devolved into a place where standards and expectations are continually lowered to the point where it is quite literally killing us. Wise men and women will ask why this is happening and will then set out to do something about finding solutions once they have discovered the source of the problem. This will indeed require us to be sowing our seed in the morning and not letting our hands be idle in the evening, and most people frankly do not have that kind of drive.

 

However, for those who do, wonderful things await - things that most people have sadly forgotten all about. Things such as excellence and quality and virtue. Things such as high achievement and pride of workmanship. And, ultimately, things such as salvation and eternal life! I don't know about you, but I have about had it up to here with the mediocrity and complacency that have become the hallmark of modern-day society. I know that it will take "getting out of my lane" to do something constructive about it. I also know that most will not appreciate that and fewer still will understand it, but that's all right. The path to success has always been a less-traveled road, so getting out of our lane really won't cause as much disruption and inconvenience to others as we might suspect. 

 

How about you - are you ready to "get out of your lane"? It will take a lot of hard work, but that's alright. Quality results have always demanded quality effort!