Choose Life: Readings For Radical DisciplesSample

Focused or Distracted?

Martha’s motives may have been laudable, but Jesus is clear that ultimately her sister got it right. The Son of God was in the house! Mary was focused on him; Martha was distracted from him. 

It’s very easy to lose focus with so many competing distractions in our lives. What is your focus?

A man was eager to try out his new hunting dog, so he took him out to track a bear. Once in the forest, dog quickly picked up the bear’s scent and sped away. Suddenly it detected the scent of a deer and veered off in a new direction. Again a new scent, that of a rabbit, distracted the dog so it pounded off on a new path. Eventually the hunter caught up with his dog. It was barking triumphantly down the hole of a field mouse. 

Can you relate to that hunting dog? You can start out with bold and noble intentions and then quickly get diverted to totally inconsequential activities. We want to keep Christ central in our lives but he so easily gets displaced. 

A key life skill is to discern the difference between the urgent and the important (Martha again). Distraction is a common temptation to keep us from doing what is most important. Lesser things may be important, but we can easily find ourselves drifting aimlessly from one project to another. We need to be focused. For example, I don’t have to answer my phone when it rings just at the critical moment when my friend is pouring his heart out to me. The former seems urgent, but the latter is actually more important. We need to learn to say “no” to things of lesser importance, or we’ll never accomplish what we were made to do. 

So back to that question: What is your focus today?

Lord, I choose to keep my focus on you today, and on what you want me to do. Amen!