Yesterday, I took Ellie and Kenny out with me to purchase several items they will need for camp which starts today. We had a list, and most of the trip went pretty well. The only difficulty was trying to find water bottles with a strap, which apparently don’t exist. And who knew I wouldn’t have to buy my kids water guns after all, because while they wanted to squirt other people in the giant Waterpalooza, they didn’t want anybody to squirt them. (I was going to buy the big ones, too. The Uzis of water gun-dom. Rats.)
Actually, being with just my older two felt oddly freeing. They’re much better at staying close to me than their younger sisters are. Unlike Lindsey and Jessica, they rarely need to be reminded of our motto for public behavior: calm and close. Whenever I was looking at one display or choosing a product off the shelves and got ready to move on, all I had to say was, “Let’s go,” and they immediately came with me.
I know; I should have been grateful for that much. And I was. But I remember at one point thinking that it would be even nicer if Ellie and Kenny were paying attention to me and followed me without my even having to call for their attention. Realistically speaking, if I want them to learn to do that, I will have to tell them, “Your attention needs to be on Mommy so that you will see me when I start to go somewhere else and so that you can follow.”
In other words, I would have to tell them the same thing God tells us.
“Focus on Me,” He says. “Do what I’m doing.” When God wants to move us off in a different direction, He shouldn’t have to get our attention first. Our attention should already be on Him.
Often, it isn’t. We’re far too easily distracted by interesting things we discovered. God gets ready to lead us somewhere else, and we’re so entranced by the Transformers or the Squinkies we don’t notice He’s moving on until He calls our name. That kind of level of paying attention is fine for children with their mother in a store. It’s excellent, even, since they heard me the first time and obeyed immediately. But it’s not good enough for us with our Father. Our eyes should be constantly upon Him so that we’re instantly in tune with where He’s going and what He wants to do.
Granted, sometimes it’s hard to see Him. Sometimes we’re doing our best to look straight at Him, but it seems like we can’t find Him. We’d love to follow Him if we could only figure out where He was going. But other times, the only reason we don’t know is because we’re not paying attention. In that case, our focus is all wrong.
If you’re like me, it’s easy to lose ourselves in the busyness of the day and wind up focusing far more frequently on laundry, discipline problems, and sticky jelly messes than on the Lord. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s okay. Yes, we need to pay attention to the tasks in life He’s called us to—but not to the exclusion of paying attention to Him.
Where is your focus today? Where is mine? If God gets ready to move, will we notice?
Psalm 123:1—To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
**For more encouragement on practical ways to stay focused on God, check out the How to Grow Closer to God page of this website.**