The mosquitoes around my area are HORRIBLE right now! You can't walk from the door of your house to your car without being swarmed. I was in the grocery store the other day and the workers were talking about how they had to spray themselves with bug spray because so many were getting into the store. Every time you open your car door, no matter how fast you go, some come in with you.
Well the other day I was driving and noticed a mosquito flying around my windshield. I thought it would be easy enough to hit the bug thus eliminating one more chance of being bitten. Boy, was I wrong. I tried so many times. I kept trying to hit it and my hand just couldn't land flat on the sloped windshield when I needed it to. After several tries I noticed that I was starting to cross over to the opposite side of the road (luckily I was on a back road with no other vehicles). I realized that I had to stop focusing on killing the mosquito because it was getting in the way of my driving.
As I continued driving I began to think about how that relates to my life at times. I was so focused on that little problem on my windshield that I didn't see anything else that was on the other side of that piece of glass. I could have went off the road or caused an accident because I was focused on one little thing and I was missing the rest of what I should have been seeing and focused on. There have been many times in life where I get so focused on something and I think about it so hard. I try to figure out how to fix it, how to change it, how to make it better... I focus on it so much that I cannot see past it. While I am doing this I am missing the rest of life. I am missing all of the good things happening. I am missing all of the blessings God has provided me. I am not enjoying my husband and children like I should be. I might even miss the solution to the problem because I am so focused on thinking about the problem.
This can happen very easily with hurt. At times I can become so focused on hurt events from the past that I miss out on life. I want the people who hurt me to make it better. I want to feel better. I want life to be perfect. I focus so much on the hurt that I miss that life is going on all around me. I miss the moments I could be laughing and playing with my kids. At one point several years ago my husband and I were working through some problems and we let all of life pretty much go. We were so focused on our problems that our daughters didn't get the attention they deserved, we didn't eat or sleep properly, and we were not responsible with keeping the house in order like it should be or our budget in line. We felt like life stopped, but in reality life was moving along and we were missing it because we were not living the Big Picture life.
God calls us to live better then this. We all have problems in life. Some are big and some little. Some are little but feel big. But through God we can keep living the Big Picture life. We don't have to focus on our problems in an unhealthy way. Yes, at times we do need to spend time focusing on fixing/correcting a problem. But when we become unbalanced and the problem is all we see then we have crossed the line of where God wants us to be. Don't focus on your mosquito so hard that you miss the world that is all around it.
Psalm 43:5 says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within in? Put your hope I God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Even when life is going rough, we need to remember to hope in the Lord. 1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us to, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
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