Clear Focus

Who, what, when, where, why, and how? We ask these essential questions about almost everything, rattling them off in a single breath as if they have equal weight. I suggest we change our perspective. The primary question we should ask is “who?” The other questions are secondary. They should support the first question:

• What for who?

• When for who?

• Where for who?

• Why for who?

• How for who?

When we focus intently on who, we begin to escape the tyranny of what, which steals the joy from our lives and service. Jesus perfectly modeled this for us. Follow Him through any day of His ministry, and you will see His focus is always on a who. Ours should be too.

If we are honest, the word focus seems intimidating and tiresome. It takes hard work and intentionality to focus on something. It does not help when we are constantly surrounded by sensory overload every waking minute of the day—a frenetic barrage of multiple images, sounds, words, and symbols, all vying for our attention—and that is just on our smart phones. This digital bombardment, combined with an assortment of other visual and auditory interruptions, is a constant competitor of any person we encounter. Thankfully, someone coined the word multitasking to help ease our guilt and justify the insanity of it all.

In the blur of this full-fledged assault on our minds, focus seems nearly impossible. Yet we recognize that excellence requires focus. We respect and appreciate the focus of people such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs because their commitment to technology revolutionized the way we live our lives. Or how about the tremendous mental and physical focus of Olympic athletes? We admire the Swiss for their watches, each one fashioned with precision and integrity. One of my cousins is an accomplished architectural artist who is commissioned to draw, in intricate detail, famous buildings such as the Biltmore House. He often works on a single square inch of a drawing for weeks to ensure every line and shadow perfectly matches the original. What focus!

We expect that kind of focus from those who serve us—from a cashier in a grocery store or a waiter at a restaurant. We grow impatient if our servers are multitasking while attending to our needs. Would any of us want to have an unfocused brain surgeon operating on our child? Of course not. We expect a laser-like focus on something that significant. But sadly, we often lack the discipline and practice necessary to achieve it ourselves.

In Christian school ministry, we have been given the privilege to serve as skilled artisans for our Lord, equipping our students—His masterpieces created in Christ Jesus—to do the good things He designed for them to do (Ephesians 2:10). So focus is not optional; it is required.

Give focus a try. Take a moment, close your eyes, and try to focus on something for a moment or two. Do not skip this important exercise. No peeking. And do not fall asleep while you do it.

Focus.

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Back so soon? That was fast. So how many of us would be willing to admit that we could not remain focused on something for even one minute? Sad, huh? Why is it so difficult? We could blame all the distractions since there are certainly plenty of them. But I suggest that even in a sound-proof room without any electronic devices, noises, and images, without practice and serious mental concentration, we would not be much more effective at focusing on something—even with our eyes closed. We are prone to engage in mental gymnastics, so we often become as distracted with rabbit-trail thoughts with our eyes closed as we do when our eyes are open. If we are honest, much of our prayer life is like this. Ouch!

Try something different. Close your eyes and focus on a person whom you love for a moment or two. Again, do not skip this or you will miss the main point of the chapter.

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That was easier, right? Maybe your mind, like mine, was flooded with joyful thoughts and memories of that person—how beautiful she looks when the sunlight catches her face at just the right angle with a little sweep of hair falling across her face, how those deep blue eyes sparkle, how she hums when she is happy as she prepares dinner for our family, how she looks at her children with such deep compassion when they are hurting, how the sound of her voice almost sings when she is proud of me, and how she sinks into my arms after a long day and sighs, “I need you.” Ahhh.

Forgive me. I got lost when I focused on the love of my life, my bride of thirty years, Melanie. Perhaps you did that too as you thought about someone dear to you. And if we added a few visual or auditory cues, we could probably focus intently on that person for a longer period of time.

The key? We are focusing on a who.

That should not surprise us. Our Creator designed us that way. In fact, we were designed to focus on Him. God is the ultimate Who of our existence. Moses wrote, If … you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deut. 4:29).

Once we understand the significance of focusing on the true Who of our existence, we can then begin to understand how to properly focus on other whos in our life. People matter to God, and because of this, they must matter to us. In effect, they deserve our focus because they have His focus. As we focus on the Lord, we will soon learn that the focus of His attention is on His precious creations, made in His image and likeness. We will be captivated by the fact that He loves each and every one of these replicas of Himself.