A Clear Objective

In the film City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays the role of Mitch, a New Yorker in his late thirties whose marriage is falling apart. He goes to a dude ranch to become a cowboy for two weeks, and there he meets an actual cowboy named Curly.

As they’re riding along on their horses, Curly, a man of few words, turns to Mitch and tells him the secret of life is just one thing.

“That’s great,” Mitch says, “but what’s the one thing?”

“That’s what you gotta figure out.”

The apostle Paul figured it out. He said, “I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:13–14 NLT).

Paul had a clear objective. Notice that he said, “I focus on this one thing.”

David, the great psalmist and king of Israel, summed it up this way in Psalm 27: “The one thing I ask of the Lord—the thing I seek most—is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple” (verse 4 NLT).

What is the one thing that gets you up in the morning? What is the one thing that gets your blood pumping, the one thing that you are really passionate about?

For the apostle Paul, that one thing was Jesus—following Jesus and knowing Jesus. And that’s what we should focus our attention on as well.

I’m not running the race of life for people. I’m not even running this race for whatever heavenly reward I may receive. I’m doing it for Jesus.