WORKING ON FOCUS

Very few truly important things in life are without their complexities. Our "JOB", of course, is no exception. The same is true of Christian focus. If focusing was easy and simple, either in the natural or the spiritual, we'd concentrate better at work, every athlete would spend more time "in the zone," every student would get the maximum from his brain, and we would probably be further along in our spiritual journey than we are. As with all great endeavors, there is a need for practice when it comes to maintaining focus on God.

We who grew up playing and watching sports forget all the small but critical things about a sport that we picked up along the way, things we don't even remember learning. Football's level of complexity is amazing. So guess what. Winning teams practice a lot! They do drills that teach skills. They run plays, the same ones over and over. The point is to practice. We would not be good at our work without learning about it and making an effort to apply what we learn.

A good work environment also depends on good relationships, so they also require effort. In a similar way, we practice maintaining our focus as we practice the complex life and death endeavor of living life with God. One of the ways we practice maintaining a God-focus all the time is by spending some time focusing on God. If you don't have a regular time in which you give God all your attention by praying, reading the Bible, listening to God, writing down your thoughts while focusing on God stuff. This is THE KEY to being able to maintain a God focus. We can learn to maintain God focus all the time, but we must start by having God focus some of the time.

The Apostle Paul told the Thessalonian church to "rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances" (I Thessalonians 5: 16-18) which is a way of saying that it's possible to keep focused on God all the time, keeping aware of his presence just as He is aware of us. Paul was a practical fellow who didn't give unrealistic advice. To understand what he was getting at, we need to start with having a God focus some of the time. That means including some of our work time. Now unlike football practice, or some work, it doesn't have to be drudgery. In fact, if you stay at it, this will become the time that is the highlight of your day. But like football practice or learning our work skills, our time of focus is preparing us for something else. It's the prep for living the rest of the day with God. It's prepping us for Game-time, when the working hours and the other hours are equally and all part of our God time.

Seems to me that God time must be all-time and all the time must be God time.

Thanks FBCJ work coach.