i admit it, i get distracted all the time. in my head, i'll have it all planned out and i'll set out to do it and along the way, that awfully, shiny wrapper will be waving at me to come take a look and pretty soon. . . i end up far from where i first started.
the best way to exemplify what i'm saying is to picture yourself doing your biology assignment, or ap schtuff, or just whatever floats your boat...and you know you need to be doing your research about endoplasmic reticulum and the differences between smooth ER and rough ER. and you're sitting there, telling yourself, okay, i need to look this up, right it down, i have to get some things down by dinnertime and i CANNOT get distracted....etc. you decide you want to check your email real quick and you figure it wouldn't hurt...i mean, c'mon, it's your email how distracting can that be? (ha.) you read through a couple boring emails then just as you're about to sign out, oops! somebody's talking to you. oh it's your best friend asking about the assignments you were given in literature. should you answer him? heck yes, he's a guy in need of help. you tell it to him real quick, he tells you thanks and then proceeds to ramble on about his day. you don't want to be rude, but you don't feel like reading his whole rant, so you leave the tab open and figure you'll tell him you have to go after he's done. while he's still ranting, you think to yourself, hmm, i'll hit up facebook real quick since he's still talking...you sign in, see a load of notifications, (mostly pictures you were tagged in) and look through a couple. after you're done, you scroll down the newsfeed and stop every now and then to read people's statuses and occasionally click a few new pictures posted. and then you see a post from somebody you haven't seen in a long time, so you hop on over to their page to do some serious stalking. you look through their pictures and then go back to the newsfeed. someone has a link to some cute movie trailer. only two minutes long, yeah, you can allow yourself to watch that real quick. you open that up in another tab, realize you haven't said a word to your friend since you got on facebook, and click back to your email only to find two more people have started talking to you and the first one already gone. oops. you send hasty replies back to the others and then watch your movie trailer. you really like the background music in it, so you google what you can make of the lyrics and find the song name and artist. you listen to a couple of tunes and find some more songs you like from them and pretty soon you're sharing the songs to the people you're talking to and setting your status with new lyrics and just as you remember about your ap bio... mum calls dinnertime. hm. sound familiar at all?
for me, it isn't so much about the academic stuff. no, i'm not talking about that. that's not to say, i'm not guilty of being distracted while doing my work, but i'm talking about something different. i'm talking about something bigger than that. i'm talking about my life. about the bigger picture. about running the race. what does it mean to run to the race? and why is it so hard to run it? these are the questions that have been going through my head nonstop ever since a dear friend wrote something to me. i have no idea why i keep thinking about it, but i don't mind...sometimes it's good to think these things out. let me just say, honestly, sometimes i forget all about running the race. why, you ask? because i lose my focus. because out in this world, i hear so many things calling out to me and see things that look so much more appealing to me than things that are actually nourishing for my spirit and before i know it, i get so caught up in it and then i realize... i've lost my focus. on Him. and the things that had been calling out my name? gone. they never last. they stay for the here and now, but never any longer. i've learned this the hard way. i've run after all sorts of things only to slowly realize that they would lead nowhere. i've looked for love and acceptance in wrong places, only to get deeper wounds. i've tried to fill the craving in my heart with worldly things, but after they left, i was left with an even bigger hole. i've been away for awhile, running way off the right track and far from where i first started, but no more.
don't stop running after God. a dear friend once wrote to me. there's going to be things that might seem more attractive, flashy, glamorous, beautiful, easy, comfortable, nice, but sooner or later, they'll be gone. keep your eyes on Him, and you will never lose your focus. how true. and as a new school year rolls in, i know there will be temptations that lurk the corner and sometimes it can be quite disheartening, but i know i'll be holding on to this truth:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." -Hebrews 12:1-3
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