Focus... Doggone it... Focus....

[Image: Hummingbird Moth, 2008, JA Van Devender]

 

Proverbs 23:4–5 (NKJV)

⁴ Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease!

⁵ Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.  

I think that man alone in God's creation is prone to distraction.

There is a "singleness of purpose" that seems to fundamentally govern the lives of God's other creatures.  Yes, a sudden noise, might startle a lion sneaking up on its prey and "distract" him from his immediate object, but his primary purpose and "focus" is the same... to get fed.  Honeybees are perhaps the most focused of all, at least in my limited understanding.  So, probably over-generalizing, I tend to think that man alone of God's creation is subject to a life-time of distraction.

Where does this show up?  Let's start with an individual instance.  How often do we start some particular project, say building a chest in our wood shop, but as we commence the work we see some other task that "needs doing", such as sharpening chisels.  We pick up one chisel and then spend two hours honing it and its brothers.  Meanwhile, the chest project winds up getting put off to another day.  I've known people to go through an entire series of such things and then, in some confusion, recognize that they have no recollection of what it was they originally intended to do.  And this is not just an "old folks" issue.  

What's true for individuals is also true for the masses.  You see it most clearly in political issues.  I remember in 2007 when the presidential primary was underway, the Democratic candidate who eventually became president, was outraged over the Bush administration's handling of the deficit.  He spoke of the way we were mortgaging our kid's future, etc. etc. etc.  The progress of time has shown that he did not fix this issue... it actually got much worse.  But by shifting the focus onto other "stuff" that "needs doing" at least, in his mind, he distracted the public's attention away from the most pressing issue.

The lack of "focus" can be quite depressing.  It is entirely possible for a person or a nation to progress in time and suddenly find that time has run out and that the ability to accomplish constructive projects is no longer possible.  It is possible for a person or a nation to look back over their history and say "what a waste!"  If we spend our time flitting from flower to flower we will not fully and finally accomplish what was truly pressing for us to do.

It takes discipline to maintain focus.  Discipline is not natural to the human animal and often times it is vigorously opposed.  There is an artificial anti-thesis put forth between discipline and freedom.  That's a subject for further thought perhaps, but right now I will just "focus" on what the writer of Proverbs was saying.  "Will you set your eyes on what is not?"

The inordinate pursuit of wealth, in this proverb, is presented as a distraction.  It distracts us from the main purpose of living a life of peace, productivity and wisdom.  It interferes with our "understanding."  At the root of this observation is the need to "keep the main thing the main thing."  In our individual lives and especially in our corporate lives, we need to focus.  There is much to be done at any given time, but not all things are equally important.  What is necessary is that we apply our God given abilities first to the judgment of what is most important among all the possible things that face us in a given day or week or year.  And then, with that ordering, there should follow a concentrated effort to focus on those things until in the progress of time, some degree of success in them has been achieved.  If we fix something that is broken, at least patch it in some way such that it now diminishes in true importance in relation to something else, then perhaps we move on to that other task.  But we must focus.

I think that in the past four years distraction has been systematically used to divert attention from the issues that are truly the most pressing in our country.  The incipient movement that raised the "Tea Party" flag was on the right course.  But what happened... systematic propaganda and the invention of artificial crises in other areas  have diluted the zeal.  And what is again being proven is the truth of the old adage... "If you work on everything then nothing gets accomplished."

In our personal lives, our "focus" must be on fulfilling our primary calling in God's Kingdom, whatever that may subjectively and individually be.  In our social lives we must get back to the central issue:  "Responsible and accountable government" that conforms to the constitutional principles on which this nation is established. 

Comments

[JMC]

Thanks for the thoughts and the picture. I find those hummingbird moths fascinating. One day, I hope it will be my focused duty to observe those and other kinds of critters.