The Very Best Question

Photography has many things about it that are important.  Light, subject, and composition all can make an image work, but focus is something very simple that if not present can make a good photo worthless.  Occasionally, the issue is that nothing is in focus.  More often though, the problem is that the focus is on the wrong thing.

Imagine a photo of a bride and groom standing in front of some pretty average trees.  The only problem is that couple is fuzzy and the landscaping is sharp as a tack.  You can even see a situation where the buttons on a man's shirt are nicely focused, but his face is kind of soft.

In life, it is even more important what is in focus.  We just can't focus on everything.  Dark clouds versus silver linings is the most obvious situation that comes to mind.  To focus on the darkness leaves me melancholic of spirit, while there generally is something good in every situation, if I just look hard enough.

Even more important is to focus on what God wants me to learn from a given situation.  This is difficulty.  Last summer, we vacationed in Chattanooga.  We were getting ready to leave the cottage where we were staying to go see the Tennessee Aquarium when I gunned the engine (not realizing I was in reverse) and backed up into the cottage, really messing up the back end of our mini van.

For the next several hours, I couldn't see anything except how I had messed up our vacation.  Darkness and distress just pounded my heart and mind.

Because, it was just a stupid thing on my part -- an accident.  I spent the next little while calling to find a body shop to repair the van and praying -- trying to discern what God wanted me to learn from this accident.

Maybe all I needed to learn from this situation was to pay attention better -- particularly to whether or not I am in drive or, reverse.  Or, maybe God wanted me to trust Him more, or listen to my wife better, or yield my fears to Him.  Or, maybe it is all of those things.

If I am honest, I can grow in all of these things -- a lot.  Just because I finished medical school eighteen years ago doesn't mean it is time for me to stop learning.

God is a teacher and He plans the lessons that I need.  So much better if I learn what He desires from them the first time.

This is the most important question to ask in every situation.  Not, "What Would Jesus Do?"  Although that is a fine question, but "What would God have me to learn?"  For, if I don't learn that lesson, I am bound to repeat it.  I can't move on, until I have completed this lesson.

This would be my focus, even in the darkest moments of life.  To learn the things God has for me to learn, even when the lessons are hard.  In this way and this way alone I can truly grow to be like Christ.