Distractions

Why am I more likely to be thinking about a computer game while waiting for the bus than to be mulling over this week’s memory verse or praying for perse­cuted Christians in Somalia?

I am inter­ested in how to constrain my mental and emotional focus so that I ponder Christ and am captiv­ated by Him rather than the useless shiny glit­tering junk of my everyday world. I suspect that this is an issue for many Christians, I know that it is a multi-million dollar industry in the busi­ness world as the popularity of books such as Getting Things Done by David Allen attests. The tend­ency to get distracted is common to all and seems to be becoming worse as tech­no­logy delivers ever more of the world to our gadgets. It has been shown that multi­tasking is a myth, all we really do is switch quickly between tasks and this actu­ally reduces concen­tra­tion rather than making us more creative, effi­cient or clever.

Clearly a wise solu­tion to distrac­tions is to reduce the number and frequency of them. I also find that some distrac­tions are more distracting than others — people talking loudly is more distracting than music playing, phones ringing are worse than traffic noises, emotional turmoil is harder to ignore than a cluttered desk. It is this last contrast which gets me closer to my concern about main­taining my focus on Christ, how to get my emotions more engaged with the glory of God?

The things that take my atten­tion are those with the strongest emotional pull. They don’t have to be good emotions — anxiety, stress and pain are not pleasant but they certainly hold my atten­tion! However, emotions are slip­pery things, very diffi­cult to control or main­pu­late at will. So is there any hope of taming my distracted heart?

I think there is. It involves that awful ‘D’ word… discip­line! I have to discip­line myself to place my atten­tion upon what is edifying for my soul, I have to monitor the ‘inputs’ into my life and turn off those that are pulling me away from Christ and maybe even find some more that will turn my thoughts towards Him. Most of all though, I need to think deeply about Christ. This needn’t be a dry academic exer­cise — if so there is not much hope for me! The inten­tion is to move beyond super­fi­cial thoughts of ‘Jesus meek and mild’ and ponder the meaning of who He is, who I am in rela­tion to Him, and how I can relate to Him. As I grow in my under­standing of Jesus Christ my emotions are moved in solid and positive ways. I join the quest that motiv­ated the Apostle Paul:

that I may know him and the power of his resur­rec­tion, and may share his suffer­ings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resur­rec­tion from the dead.
(Philippians 3:10–11 ESV)

Tagged as: choices, David Allen, lifestyle, stuff, technology