Checked your wall lately?

What do you do when you focus in the wrong direction?

I’m not talking about just looking the wrong way, I mean pointing all your energy in the wrong direction.

I heard it said once that the greatest tragedy in life is to spend all your years climbing the ladder of life, only to find out you had it leaning on the wrong wall.

In ancient Hebrew, this particular human condition is pronounced “bi-gbu-mmer.”

It’s one thing to see a life lived poorly day after day, month after month, and year after year. It’s usually the product of bad circumstances, poor decisions or any number of factors that require a major life change to overcome.

What do you do when your focus is in the wrong direction like that?

Counseling… move across the country… go back to school… make some huge changes.

But, this really isn’t the issue for most of us. The large majority of normal people, in average circumstances, have issues that are temporary distractions and localized mismanagement of priorities.

It’s the small things that really hinder most of us.

Take my life right now. I am sweating bullets, gnawing my fingernails and working on an ulcer…why?

• Is the church going through a crisis?
• Is there a huge medical issue in our family?
• Did someone just drop some seriously bad financial news on us?

Nope… it’s half time of game one in the Western Conference Finals and you’d think I actually play for Dallas Mavericks.

What’s wrong with me?

Please don’t post a response to that in the comments below… it was rhetorical.

I remember sitting by the hospital bed of Duane Burns just a few weeks ago. He was telling me about his last visit with the doctor.

He told me he was going to die.

And, he said he wanted my “pretty wife” to sit next to me at his funeral so all his family could see her. She did.

Then he shared his favorite verse with me:

1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

He said it with a smile.

I worry too much.

I work at the wrong things.

I prioritize… incorrectly.

What do you do when you focus in the wrong direction?

Refocus… cast your cares on Jesus. He can handle it. He can get you going in the right direction.

Spend more time in prayer. Spend more energy on the ministries of God. Spend less on things that don’t last to make room for things that will endure forever.

Hope this is as much a challenge to you as it is to me, but I can’t take anymore time to expound this issue… Halftime’s over.

Go Mavs!