Sometimes, you just have to focus on the goal and push through the distractions.
It was a few minutes before the wedding was due to start. The pastor had talked with the groom earlier. All the groomsmen were present and accounted for and ready for the big event. It was a beautiful day. Clear skies. Bright sun. Gentle breeze. The wedding was to be held in a field, the bride and groom standing in the shade of a huge elm, the guests seated before them on wooden pews with their backs to the brightness of the afternoon sun.
The minutes ticked by. The time to start came and went. No bridesmaids. No bride. Then came the news. The bride was just finishing make-up and wasn’t in her dress, there would be a 20-minute delay. The pastor sent the celebrants into the shade to wait.
The minutes ticked by. The time to start came and went. No bridesmaids. No bride. Then came the news. The bride would be delayed a bit longer. There would be another delay, perhaps just a half hour or so. The groomsmen brought bottled water. The pastor joined the celebrants in the shade.
The minutes ticked by. The time to start came and went. There was a bridesmaid. Two. Then three. No bride. But she was coming. The car left the hotel. The car arrived. The service started. The “I do’s” were said. The newlyweds took pictures. The guests waited at the reception hall.
Sometimes you just have to focus on the goal and push through the distractions. The flower bouquets had not been ready. Those that were done, some were done wrong, with the wrong flowers. They had to be redone.
Finished had to be restarted and then brought to finished again. Time to start yielded to time to wait.
At the reception, everyone waited. And waited. And waited. There should have been food. A lot of food. Good outdoor, country kind of food. The guests waited. The bridal party arrived from their picture taking adventure. Their delay? They had gotten word while taking pictures that the main buffet event had been ruined. No food. At least not that food. They had to go, in wedding garb, to find more food for their waiting guests.
Sometimes, you just have to focus on the goal and push through the distractions. There were no blows, no curses (that the pastor heard, anyway). There were just patience and endurance and solutions. The groom joked, “No one died.”
You see, flowers and food were not the goal of the day. The focus of the day was on two people, deeply in love, prepared and anxious to give themselves to one another in a lifelong covenant in which God would invest Himself.
They weren’t facilitating a flower show. They were getting married. They weren’t hosting a gala. They were getting married. Sometimes, you just have to focus on the goal and push through the distractions.
These newlyweds did just that. They focused on the goal of joy and pushed through the distractions of disappointment. The Bible says that Jesus “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross.” The cross upon which He died for our sins, yours and mine, was no delight for Jesus. It was a pain, a sorrow, a death that He endured for the sake a greater joy. He accepted the horror of death on a cross in exchange for the joy of honoring God’s will and providing a means for us to find forgiveness. Our freedom from the fear of death was a joy-infused goal Jesus found worth dying for.
When by faith we accept the forgiveness God offers in Jesus Christ His Son, life doesn’t immediately get easy, every problem solved, every sorrow avoided, every pain relieved, every disappointment vanquished. But what we do get is a new perspective, a new hope, a new goal and a new desire and ability to focus on the goal and push through the distractions.
Because sometimes, in the life of faith, that’s just what you have to do.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. Pastor Dale McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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