I learned many lessons as a young lad, growing up on a farm in the Midwest. Many of those experiences have faded in memory as time passes, but I still remember one lesson vividly. I was finally old enough to operate the machinery used to cultivate corn. This involved navigating a large tractor and an attached cultivator between rows of young, delicate corn seedlings. In those days, if I remember correctly, the rows of corn were 38 inches apart. That may seem like plenty of room, but it suddenly narrowed appreciably when one was tasked with guiding several thousand pounds of tractor and cultivator between those delicate plants. The blades of the cultivator were set to destroy weeds as close as possible to the corn itself.
My grandfather gave me a crash course in the finer points of my mission and, just like that, I was on my own. I hadn’t gone far until I made a rookie mistake. I was so concerned about damaging the corn that I was spending most of my time looking back at the cultivator instead of looking ahead at where I should have been steering the tractor. When I did that, the tractor would veer off course and I ended up doing the very thing I was trying to prevent -- destroying corn. After letting me struggle a bit, Grandpa stopped me (probably to save the rest of his crop) and explained the importance of focusing on what was ahead, i.e. driving the tractor straight. If you keep the tractor between the rows of corn, the cultivator has to follow the same path. It would do its job if I focused on doing mine.
God reminds us of the same lesson through the writer of Hebrews. We are encouraged to focus on Jesus instead of all of the other things that seek to distract us (Hebrews 12:1-2). If we are aiming our lives at him, so much else in life tends to fall in place. God will do His job if we focus on doing our job (Matthew 6:33).
God loves you!
Mike
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