It is amazing how things can stick in your mind and be an influence in your life throughout your life. When I was a kid, I got this little book about karate. I was going to study that book and be invincible. I remember thinking that once I mastered karate, I could fearlessly defend myself in any situation. In my young, naive mind I would be able to right all wrongs when it came to any future fights. Well, in the midst of all that mental kid hoopla, I did learn something from my exposure to karate that has stuck with me all these years. I was reminded of it yesterday when I was getting a piece of watermelon out of the refrigerator. I had the piece of watermelon in my left hand over the kitchen sink, and a fly lit on top of my thumb on the hand holding the watermelon. In that pristine moment, my lesson that I took from my early karate self-training came bursting back into my memory. One thing I had learned from the book I read was to focus on the target in view. I felt the focus in my mind gathering all its awesome force like a laser beam burning on the fly. With the focus in place in a second, my right hand shot onto my left thumb with lightning speed. In the next moment my trophy lay in the bottom of the kitchen sink, not moving—lifeless. My training from yesteryear had triumphed! (Pretty good for a vintage seventy-four-year-old, huh!) Well, here is a lesson for us. A lot of times there are things that happen to us, things that we learn, and attitudes and concepts that we pick up along the way, especially from the younger time of our life, that affects our life the rest of our life. It is great when these things, attitudes and concepts are positive. For that we can be thankful. But, a lot of times these things are negative, and they have a negative impact on our life. One value of spending time in the Word of God and prayer is that it allows God to reveal these negative influences on us so that we can be freed of them. Negative influence brings negative results. With open honesty before God and being willing to “own up” to whatever He shows us, we can repent, we can turn from the operation of those negative influences and renounce them. Having done that, we can then ask the Lord to cleanse us and fill us with His Spirit. His Spirit brings the positive life and liberty of Jesus Christ in us and through us. One of the main things about the Spirit of God is that He bring liberty. He liberates us from fears, inhibitions, attitudes and concepts that hold us back from accomplishing in life that which we were made to accomplish. The Spirit of God in Christ Jesus brings abundant life. Focus. Kill the fly.
Focus! Kill That Fly!
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