Focus on the prize

I sat in my office and listened to the traffic buzz by this afternoon and it reminded me of the scene at Vacation Bible School down in Mexicali a few weeks back. I was sitting in the adult class. Well actually the class was outside in the dirt yard on one of the member's homes. As the teacher was speaking and engaging the adults in a discussion a big truck pulled up to the neighbor's house across the street. It had a refrigeration unit or something with a compressor and it was loud. I had to strain to hear what the teacher was saying. Then a big bus pulled up and because the truck was blocking the narrow road, it just sat there and the driver began tooting the horn.

I was amazed because I was totally distracted. The teacher never missed a beat. She kept talking and the students kept responding to her questions. I thought to myself that these two big vehicles were doing everything possible to drown her out and disrupt class, yet they couldn't break through the concentration and intensity of her presentation.

It made me think of how the devil tries to distract us and get us sidetracked as we go out with the message of God's love. Most of us can't stand up to it. We stumble and fall and end up going off course. We forget, we fall to temptation and we end up failing.

I learned something that night. If you want to succeed you have to keep your focus on what you are doing. You have to block out distractions and keep your eye on Christ. That's what Paul was talking about when he talked about running the race and staying the course to get the prize.

Those truck eventually took off and the peace and calm returned. The only one who missed anything was me. Maybe next time I will do better.

Cal