WF Pride

Focus on Unity and Humility

Chad Cottingham

When my youngest daughter, Madi, was in second grade, she began having trouble reading. She also had some issues running into things and being a bit clumsy. This may be somewhat normal for a pre-teen growing into adolescence, but not for a 7 year old. My wife decided to take her to the eye doctor – maybe there was something wrong with her eyes. We didn’t think so as neither one of us wear glasses and our older three children all have good vision too. Boy were we wrong; Madi’s eyes were extremely bad. She needed very strong glasses to correct her vision and focus. But what an improvement for Madi. Reading became easy and fun again, and she wasn’t running into everything as before.

When we look at this week’s core value: focus on unity and humility, we often just look at the words unity or humility. I want to take this time and talk about focus – our focus in life. It’s very tough to focus on building unity or being humble when far too often our focus is on ourselves. This ‘me’ generation we’re living in has our society so self-absorbed that we have trouble recognizing anything else. We are so obsessed with our needs, our wants, our desires, our dreams, our future, our job, our kids, our church, our views, our opinions, etc… that we don’t see much beyond us. Do you notice the pattern? It’s all about us.

If we shift our focus away from ourselves and onto Jesus Christ it’s remarkable how much more we can actually see. We see problems and issues around us like never before. We might see the neighbor going through the loss of a loved one, we see a friend struggling with their teenager, we see a co-worker fighting cancer, and we see the hungry and needy in and around where we live. It’s amazing what happens when our focus is clear and directed in the right place. We can truly be unified in Christ and humble in spirit when we focus on Jesus and not ourselves.

Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ~NLT

James 1:27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. ~NLT

“Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, help us to focus more on you and less on ourselves. Help us to see clearly ways to help and support those around us. Forgive us for being selfish. It’s in Jesus name I pray, Amen.”