Keep focused

Every time I open up my blog or email account, I get an advertising band across the bottom with a gyrating torso showing the difference between a flat and a fat tummy, and how to achieve the most attractive results. I am a little paranoid of malicious attacks on my computer and am quick to close it down. But it annoys me.

Similarly, so often now when I go to make an on-line purchase, before my next chosen page opens I am shunted off to an on-line marketing questionnaire and promised if I answer a couple of simple questions, I’m in with a chance to win a new I-pad/phone. Again, with irritation I close the thing down, this time not so much agitated that I’m under malicious attack but that my privacy is being invaded and compromised.

It’s really hard to stay focused when so many interruptions conspire against it. One of my main reasons for resisting the temptation to open a Facebook account is that I will find my time compromised because I become distracted. Maybe that says more about me and my weakness than about any external interruption.

I don’t think I am unique though, and I believe that in this noisy, busy world, it takes determination and concentration to remain focused.

There’s a Christian song from a couple of decades ago with the lines, ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.’ 

Good, healthy advice.

St Paul advises that we fix our eyes on Jesus, who loves us, who prays for us, who longs for us to just slip aside into a lay-by and sit with him. It takes determination and self-discipline and practice to do this. 

I have been blessed by the benefits of doing it, yet even knowing that, I am still easily distracted. Sometimes I think the distractions may originate from a malicious source seeking to subvert my highest, but perhaps weak, desires to glorify God. But most of the time I think the distractions are simply there for their own purposes – to sell me something, or get me to sign up for something.

This is the day the Lord has made – rainy and windy as it is. I am deciding right now, before 9 am, to rejoice and be glad in it, to spend time focusing on Jesus and listening to hear that still small voice, to notice his loving presence in my life. To remain focused, undistracted.

How about you?