Monthly Letter from our Pastor

Where you stand will likely determine what you are capable of seeing. What you see from where you stand will likely be determined by your focus. Your focus will likely be determined by your interests. Your interests likely come from your own heart. Your heart will likely determine where you stand.

Half full or half empty? An adventurous day or a challenging day? Energizing activity versus tiring activity? It is all a matter of perspective; either of the answers may be correct. In fact, both may be correct at the same time. However, our focus will likely shape our perspective and our feelings about our situation or events.

In my own life I have had to come to grips with misguided focus and perspectives. Thinking the worst, being pessimistic, fault-finding, and the list could go on and on, couldn’t it? What is in my heart in these moments? Am I feeling sorry for myself? Am I focused on my own interests? How easy should life be for me anyway?

In the midst of life we often jump to conclusions. When we jump to conclusions, more times than not we jump to the wrong conclusions. We may have too little information, we may not have listened well to the information we did receive, and the information received may have been filtered through our own heart’s desire. Once we come to the wrong conclusion(s), it is difficult to get back to the right perspective so that we can make the right conclusions.

I have jumped to wrong conclusions in my life. People have asked, “How did you come to that conclusion?” My answer was simply “From where I was standing,….” Maybe my heart was leading me to stand in the wrong place so that I didn’t see what I should have seen. Maybe my focus was misplaced because I was concerned about my own interests and not the interests of others or of God. Maybe my heart was so wrapped up in what I wanted and how I wanted things to turn out that I just wasn’t positioned right to get the right perspective.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).”

Lord, help us get our hearts right!
Sincerely,
Pastor Les