{"id":356,"date":"2012-03-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/?p=356"},"modified":"2012-03-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T12:00:00","slug":"focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">I had a crazy morning a while back. Have you ever had a day like this?<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Woke up at 4:45 a.m.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Husband left for work at 5:30 a.m.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Did a little Bible study.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Took a shower.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Drove son to work.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Realized I was hungry and thought I\u2019d make toast and peanut butter as soon as I got home.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">On the way home I thought my windshield was pretty dirty with bugs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Turned on wipers and smeared them all over the window.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Decided to clean my windows when I got home.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Pulled into garage, noticed something on my front door.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Cleaned my windows.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Went to front door to get junk mail.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Noticed the plants on my front porch needed watered\u2026badly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Got the junk mail and threw it in the trash.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Went inside and got my watering container (I don\u2019t have a watering can because I kill plants).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Watered one section of the plants.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">On the way back inside, the cat ran out the front door.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Got a second container of water.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Watered last section of the plants.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Put container away.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Pulled the block out of the doggie door at the back door so the cat could get back in.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Poured a cup of coffee.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Heard cat at the front door.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Let the cat in.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Checked my email.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Realized I hadn\u2019t made my toast or drank the cup of coffee I poured.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Made toast with peanut butter.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Ate toast and drank my cup of warm coffee.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">This is a morning that kept me from staying focused on what I needed to stay focused on. I was hungry. Hunger is something that tends to get our attention. It got mine, however, when other things or issues arose, my hunger faded to the background.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">It reminds me of Paul\u2019s discussion with the Galatians. He says, <i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\">\u201cYou were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?\u201d <\/i>(Galatians 5:7) In this case, it was the Judiaizers, Those who felt the Galatians needed to be circumcised before they could become Christians. For us it can be a number of things.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Family, work, recreation, death of a spouse or family member, laziness, television, etc. Each of these things can \u201ccut in\u201d on our desire to be and do what God wants from us. Whether it\u2019s our Bible study time, our prayer time with God, helping someone in need, serving in our local church, or any other worthy activity.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Don\u2019t let anything get in your way of being what God wants you to be. Stay focused. Keep running the good race. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Grace and peace be yours in abundance,<\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: \"Calibri\",\"sans-serif\"; font-size: 14pt;\">Donna<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a crazy morning a while back. Have you ever had a day like this? Woke up at 4:45 a.m.\u00a0 Husband left for work at 5:30 a.m. Did a little Bible study. Took a shower. Drove son to work. Realized I was hungry and thought I\u2019d make toast and peanut butter as soon as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15,23,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-following-god","category-knowing-god","category-seeing-god","category-trusting-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fullmeasureofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}