THE ONE THING AND ALL THE OTHER THINGS

If you watched the movie City Slickers, you may remember this pivotal scene (cleaned up and abbreviated):
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? [holds up one finger] This.

Mitch: Your finger? 

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean (anything). 

Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?" 

Curly: [smiles] That's what you have to find out. 

I don’t know if Lenny Cacchio is a fan of the movie, but about a year ago he gave similar advice when it comes to overcoming as a Christian. I believe he gave the sermon in CGI Tyler around the spring Holy days last year on May 7th. In it, Lenny mentioned that it can be overwhelming to try to overcome all our faults and said that what he does is pick a single focus for the year. 

I took the advice of Curly and Lenny last year and my focus was on getting rid of pride. Pride is a sneaky beast. Pride, as you might expect, gets in the way of accepting second place or third or last. But it can also have me insisting on last place as I pride-fully claim the “least” spot as mine. Oh, pride, how you trip me up, let me count the ways…But pride isn’t the focus on this blog. 

What I found is that when I focused on one thing, it actually touched everything – my heart, my will, my service to the body of believers, my prayer, my Bible study, my friendships, my job, etc. 

And so, I plan to find my “one thing” to focus on for the coming year and I am beginning to think about it now. 

I know this is the time when people set their “new year’s resolutions” and I think it is fine if you want to go from calendar year to calendar year. However, I’d actually like to encourage you to just begin thinking about and praying about your “one thing” for the coming year.

Even though my year of focusing on removing pride is not over – not until Passover 2017 – it seems important to me to start thinking of my new focus now as I prepare for the spring Holy day season.

As my custom is, I’ll start reading the Gospels on January 1 in preparation for the spring Holy days. I’ll let the story of Jesus’ time on earth, the lessons He gave and the examples He set while “God in the flesh” lead me to my “one thing” for the coming year.  

The Bible tells us we are to work at overcoming and indicates to me that we ought to have some kind of plan in place, rather than just “winging it.” Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

I’d like to encourage all my sisters in Christ to join me this year – in both reading the Gospels and in deciding on “one thing” to focus on in putting sin out of our lives. I’m thinking of focusing on integrity, but I’ll let you know for sure as we get closer to the spring Holy days. That way, you can help hold me accountable for how I am doing throughout the coming year. If you are willing, please share your “one thing” for the year ahead if you decide to join me in this.

If my goal is perfection (and I believe it must be), then I’ve got some work to do. {Matthew 5:48 You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [RSV]} At least now I have a plan in place: to focus on one thing and allow that one thing to impact all the other things.

Thanks to Lenny Cacchio (and Curly) for the suggestion to focus on the “one thing.” You can connect with Lenny Cacchio and read his blog at http://morningcompanion.blogspot.com/

I’d love to hear your thoughts and tips on how you focus on overcoming. You can email me at Nancy@DynamicChristainMinistries.org or message me on Facebook.