Focus On God

And Another Thing . . . Focus

As I sit down to write this blog, on my desk are two computers, an iPad and an iPhone. I am looking at four different screens and I have an expectation for each one. I know a text will be coming through any moment. And now I see a new Groupon.

Focusing is a challenge.  We are surrounded by images and ads and shiny things.  Everywhere we look we have multiple opportunities for distraction. Years ago, only the aristocracy could afford entertainment and background music in their homes.  Today, nearly every life comes with a soundtrack; in fact, I am listening to one of my “playlists” as I write this.

Ps 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  That truth was written before there were noisy combustion engines; before the printing press and ubiquitous literacy; before artificial light.  When David, the shepherd, wrote these words, if a person were to act on his advice and become still, the sounds of nature and silence were much more likely to come rushing in.  God would come into focus.  God is everywhere, but we can miss him if we never stop; if we never choose to become still and look for him. 

If people who could never travel faster that the speed of a horse needed to be encouraged to slow down, how much more do we need these words today?  If people with no access to mass communication, whose worldviews were shaped primarily by the things they saw and experienced in their small communities, are encourage to be still and know God, how much more do we need to take these words to heart?

God told Moses in Exodus 3:14 that his name was “I am.”  Jesus said in John 8:58, “before Abraham was, I am.”  The place where we encounter God is in this moment.  The present is the only place we can be, so it is the only place we can be with him.  Each breath; each second is an opportunity to encounter God.

Satan’s main strategy in each of our moments is to direct our focus somewhere else.  To essentially say, “Hey, look at this. Keep going. This is funny. This is upsetting. Worry about this. Puzzle over that. Don’t stop. Faster.”  His intention is to distract us so that we miss the moment God has for us. He can distract us with relatively benign things, or he can double down and direct our attention to self-gratifying or even evil things. But his overarching goal is to get us to think of anything besides Jesus.

Jesus says in John 12:32, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” In John 14:6, Jesus says, “"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” When a person sees Jesus, they are drawn to him. When a person encounters Jesus, they find life.  John 10:10 tells us that Jesus came that we might have life to the “full.” The enemy’s strategy is to get everyone to look any place except the place where Jesus is lifted up.

The truth of David’s Psalm remains forever. Be still (stop moving, clear your head of distractions), and know that I am God (embrace the truth that brings clarity and life to everything else).

And that is all I have to say about that . . . for now.