Our guest blogger today is Makayla Springsteen. Mikayla recently graduated from high school and is serving in South Africa for a year. We are so proud of you Makayla!

Ladies of First Baptist, during my time in Africa so far, God has been teaching me many things. I began to pray and ask Him what I should share with you and I found a simple illustration. In my first few weeks in Africa, I got to go on a safari. For the first mile or so all we saw were trees and mountains and I was so amazed by them. Their simple beauty and uniqueness captured my attention. As planned, we drove along and we started to see all kinds of wild animals in their natural habitat. From giraffe, to hippos, to elephants, and rhinos, we got to see it all. As I started to look at the beauty of the animals, I forgot about the beauty that had first caught my attention. I began to loose interest in the environment and focus only on trying to find the next animal. In this situation that wasn't a bad thing, but in our walk with The Lord it is dangerous to loose sight of our first love and turn to those "beautiful" things that take our attention away from God. In Hebrews 12:2  It says, "to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and perfecter of our faith." He tells us in His Word to turn our eyes to Him, but how often do I sneak a peak, or look towards things of this world that take my attention away from The Lord. As we left the safari and drove out the same mile of trees and mountains we drove in on, I got to see the biggest most beautiful sun set over the mountains, and once again it was a beautiful picture. It is the same way with our life in Christ, no matter where we stray or where we look to, at the end of the day when we look back to Christ, he takes us back as His own and makes our lives into a beautiful picture to bring Him glory.

Love,
Makayla