What you're moving towards

I don't have a car... I have a motorcycle. In Arizona you can ride year-round (although it's WAY cold most mornings right now!). I've been riding for about 4 years now. When I first got my bike, I took a motorcycle training course and I'm glad I did. As it turns out, riding a motorcycle is one of the most counter-intuitive things I've ever done.

For example, you'd think that when riding a motorcycle you'd want to stay vertical as much as possible. While that's mostly true, they teach you that you are supposed to lean into a turn. You'd also think that you should turn your handlebars in the direction you wish to turn. Instead, as you lean to turn, you are to push that handle bar forward. So if you want to turn right, you lean right and push the right handlebar forward!

The most important thing I've learned while riding. Your bike will go the direction you are looking. If you look right, your bike will start to veer right. When you're turning, they teach you to look way ahead of you... to where you want to go. Instinct tells me to look at the ground directly in front of me to avoid any treachery awaiting me at the corner. That is a sure way to lay your bike down. "If you look down at the ground, you'll end up on the ground."

You will go the direction you are looking. The same is true in the rest of life too. Whatever you are looking at... whatever gets your attention guides your direction. At my church, we have a term called 'negative meditation' (I'm sure we didn't coin the phrase, but that's the only place I've heard it). Simply stated, we cannot help but be consumed by those things we meditate on. If I dwell on the fact that I don't have as much money as I want or think I need, then my life will become about money. If I focus on the problems in my marriage, then my mind will be consumed by the flaws in my marriage... the flaws in my spouse.

I think the same is true of my own sin. What happens if my thoughts are dominated by a particular sin mine? What could be wrong with obsessing over trying to break a sinful habit? Obsession.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't take all of those things seriously. God is very concerned with our handling of our finances. He wants us to make healthy relationships and marriages a priority. And of course He wants us to take our sin seriously. Just like there's nothing wrong with checking my mirrors on the bike, there's nothing wrong with giving those things some attention. My focus should be forward, however. Too much time looking in the mirrors and I'm in trouble.

Focus. "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself (Matthew 6:25-34)."

My sweet Marilyn