Uninterrupted Attention

 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”   John 1:14




Pastor Larry Miller quoted that scripture for the Christmas Eve service.  It was a beautiful reminder of the love that God gave us by sending His One and only Son. To live to die, that was the plan. Good Friday is the reason for the season.
The part, “…and we saw His glory,…” really struck me as I re-read it Christmas morning. Some translations will say, “we beheld” or “we observed.”   I asked myself, what does that look like to see, behold, or observe His glory?  Jesus was active in the first two, He became and He dwelt. However, our responsibility is in the beholding of His glory. This must be important to know because John takes time to describe the glory that we are observing. So again, I must ask God, what it looks like to live out, “…and we saw His glory…?”
In the original Greek, we saw, means to observe something with continuity and attention. To carefully look at something, to play very close attention to.  The connection to this observation is uninterrupted, unbroken.  As Wuest would put it, “And we gazed with attentive and careful regard and spiritual perception at His glory…”
My time with God that morning showed me how far I still need to come. I need to truly seek Him with an unbroken stare. I need to be more active in my attention to His Word. I need to not take His glory for granted. In short, I must choose to be obedient and give Him my uninterrupted attention.

A Prayer to Remember

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”     Ephesians 5:1,2 

It has been fourteen weeks since the Sunday/Thursday Marriage Classes begun. We have just wrapped up our journey through the study, Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas.  The entire focus is asking ourselves this basic yet foundational question, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”

Is that a great question or what?  Too often we hear a spouse talk about how they are not happy in their marriage.  That they don’t understand how to be happy like it was in the beginning.  They are waiting for their spouse to do something to bring back that spark, that tingle of love. Do you see the focus? Do you see the shortfall in that path of thinking?  It’s all about ME!

Instead, the focus of our marriage should be taken off of the horizontal and fixed to the vertical. We should be using the challenges, joys, struggles and celebrations of marriage to draw closer to Him and to also grow in Christian character.  We should be allowing God’s Hands to wrought our marriages in holiness.  

As we closed our study this past week, the author, Gary Thomas, challenged us with a prayer.  Instead of us waking up each morning asking ourselves, “Am I happier today than I was yesterday?” he suggested that we pray a prayer to truly give us the focus we need to keep our marriages God-Centered. This is what he suggests we should pray, “Lord, how can I love my spouse today like he/she has never been or ever will be loved?”  Did you catch that?  Is that a prayer you can take ownership of?

I truly believe that this is a prayer God would love to answer.  Just take some time to imagine how your marriage may begin to change. We won’t be overtaken by our disappointments when our focus will be on what we can do for our spouse.

“Lord, how can I love my spouse today like he/she has never been or ever will be loved?”