By: Pastor Lars Janssen
Let’s test your focus. Try reading this aloud:
Maybe you didn’t think that was so hard. How about this?
.dlrow gnisufnoc dna desufnoc siht no sucof ot drah s’tI
Most of us would have to focus a little harder than usual to read those lines out loud. I know I had to focus pretty hard typing them.
Have you noticed how difficult it can be to maintain focus these days? I just did an online typing speed test and found that I can type about 50 words per minute (40-60 is average according to Google). So I should have been able to type this 700-word column in about fourteen minutes, except that I’m easily distracted and often unfocused (as evidenced by my taking an online typing speed test just now).
Are you finding the same is true about you?
It takes effort to receive words and process their meaning — whether we’re talking about written or spoken words. It takes focus.
How many words do you think you’ve processed today? How about this past week, month, or year? Even if you don’t take in all the news, engage in numerous daily conversations, or wander through the endless scroll of social media or internet content, there’s still a lot to process. Would you say that you were focused enough to process all of those words well?
It’s hard to focus in this confused and confusing world.
The magnitude of the content is enough to confuse us. But even when we are focused enough to process the content’s meaning, there are many things that still unsettle us or leave us uncertain. We’re left with a sense of loose threads or frayed edges. We hear the words but wonder how they connect or why there is no sense of wholeness in their meaning.
We receive violent words and wonder, “Why is there so much hate?”
We encounter desperate pleas and ask, “How can poverty be so widespread?”
We are exposed to irreconcilable opinions and try to discern, “Which voices should I trust?”
We check our numerous forms of communication and yet inquire, “Why is the most connected society in history struggling so deeply with loneliness?”
These are real and complex problems, yet God is gracious to keep things simple for us if we listen to him. He tells us to love him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and he tells us to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). This is our focus: love God and others.
So what does it look like to focus on following Jesus in a confused and confusing world?
Paul says that we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). God has prepared good things for you to do and they may be different than the good things he’s prepared for me. We can each focus on the good things he’s prepared for us as we love our neighbours. Our good works may look as different as our neighbours are different.
Paul charges Timothy, his younger pastoral protege, to “fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). God had set a task before Timothy that was different than Paul’s. This is what Paul was talking
about when he told us to each do our part in the church so that the church “builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16). Will we focus on what God has given each of us to do?
Sometimes we get distracted by the confusion around us, but we will never get lost if we follow Jesus through the smoke and mirrors. The one thing we should focus on is following Jesus, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, [we] press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
It’s hard to focus in this confused and confusing world.
So here’s our first Challenge of the year, Central: together, and individually, let’s focus on following Jesus.
