Captured

Captured - To take captive, as by force or craft; seize.

Remember the good old days of playing capture the flag (no; well, I barely remeber it either). You know the game where you and a bunch of friends break up in to two teams, each team has a flag that you have to hide from the other team and the the two teams try and capture the flag from eachother with out getting caught. Man that was a realy fun game. Unless of course your flag got captured, then you felt like a big loser. No but really - there was this sense of total defeat when your flag got captured. It was almost like your little world just ended, you were devestated and like any good team player you began to point your finger at everyone else and blame them for letting the flag get captured. You see that flag was like your life line and you were to guard it with everything you had so that the game could continue, it was your focus, your attention, your passion.

As I was lying wide awake last night around 1am I began to think to myself - You know life is alot like capture the flag. No maybe were are not running around trying to capture little pieces of cloth but life is running around trying to still my focus, my attention and my passions.

Let me explain it a little bit further. You see I have a passion for my wife but life will try through other relationships (family,friends etc.) or just a busy schedule to still my focus, attention and passion off of her and miss place it somewhere else. I have a passion for young people (thus the youth pastor) but life will come in and through so many tasks and chores my way that all of a sudden my attention and focus are no longer on them but on other things. Weeks could go by befor you realize these things have been captured from you but the minute you realize it has happened just like with capture the flag the feeling of devestation sets in. You begin to feel like a failure and the joy that was previously in your life is gone because your passion, attention and focus are not gone - in essennce the thing you were created to do has been taken from you.

The Bible says in 1 Samuel 4:21 ...The glory has departed from Israel!, because the ark of God had been captured...
The Ark was their attention, their focus, their passion, and really at that time the center of their worship, becuase it represented God. When this got captured God's original design "to fill the whole earth with His glory" was stopped as the Bible says that the glory departed from His people.

What is the point I am trying to make here: We must be on guard (Proverbs 4:23, "Keep your heart with all dilligence for out of it springs the issues of life".) our focus, attention and passions so that life cannot still them from us, becuase once these are stollen from us we begin to loose the original intent that God had for our lives - To be in relationship with Him, to look more like Him every day, to conquer evil everyday with the power He has given us, and to spread this glorious life on to others.

So as you are out and about today stay focused and don't let anyone capture your flag.

Dream Big and Stay in motion
PB