The focus

Beans and Rice~ day 3

Often times I am guilty of loosing focus on the things that really matter. I let my feelings and emotions get the best of me- forgetting to put what really matters first- God.

As silly as it sounds- eating only beans and rice for dinner every night has really begun to change my focus.

Where we used to sit down at the table and spout out a quick prayer of thanks-now I am finding that we are really focusing on what God is trying to teach us. I am going to admit that a lot of times I didn’t really let the words of our prayer reach my heart… I said them, but at the same time I was already thinking ahead-already worried about who I had to get to what practice, or remembering something I needed to ask Todd or one of the kids. Often times we’d barely finish our prayer and we were already digging in… forgetting how truly blessed we were to have that food that was set in front of us.

We’d forget to be thankful for Todds job that enabled us to purchase the food, we’d forget to be thankful for the person who spent time preparing the food and we’d forget to be thankful to God because he provided the food. We often just took it for granted.

Yet not only has the focus of our prayer life at dinner been different- but our focus on each other has been different too. Previously I had put so much emphasis on what to prepare for dinner that might that it often took up a lot of my time and energy that I didn’t have then for my family. I would scurry around the kitchen, working hard to please everyone’s taste buds, and now I am finding that this simple meal is allowing me to have more time to focus on each individual instead.

Isn’t it just amazing that God is so good to take such a simple thing, like beans and rice, and bless us in ways we never thought possible when we simply move our focus to Him?

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8