Focus on Your Inside Life

The problems with the accommodations at the Sochi Olympics were widespread.  So-called hotel rooms had no hot water, functioning toilets or beds. Rooms had either no doorknobs or doors that lock you in your bathroom without warning.  Going out beyond the room could lead you to an open elevator shafts inside or open manholes outside.  As one Olympian exclaimed, "Wowzers!”  It‘s hard to imagine such things in American hotel rooms.

I noticed that the public face of the Olympics seemed much more polished. The gleaming arenas in the resort town were beautiful and TV presentations polished.

While the world's attention is focused on this dichotomy between public appearance and behind the scenes reality, this kind of contradiction is sadly found within all people. The external image of our public persona too often shows a lack of character and integrity inside.

It's easy for one to attend to his projected persona and ignore the internal foundation of his heart.  One can pay too much attention to the external trappings of life and too little to the internal spiritual and emotional health.

What about you?  Do you concentrate on maintaining your internal change and wholeness? Are the basics firmly built into your inner life? That means attending to the basics of your relationship with God, your community, and your own hidden heart.

Jesus described this strong infrastructure as a house built with a deep foundation laid upon a rock, so that "when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built," Luke 6:48 (ESV).