The task of initiating and maintaining focus is and always has been difficult, but in our world saturated with digital media, it is one which is receiving quite a bit of air time. It is a subject of great concern among many authors in the business world today. We are finding it more and more difficult to enter into long periods of focus at work. Texts, emails, instant messaging apps, and social media notifications alert our attention every few minutes to some new piece of information. Most of it is trivial and entirely unnecessary. Evidence this is taken seriously as a problem and not just as a fact of life are the “productivity hack experts” and “productivity app” developers which have erected an entire category of industry dedicated to addressing this problem.
For the Christian, the life of the mind is not just a matter of material productivity or a dimension of personal well-being. It is sacred. The Apostle Paul regards the mind as the gate to our heart. In Romans 12, he declares we realize the end for which we were created, our conformity to Christ, through the “renewal of our minds.” This raises the stakes of the problem. Humanly speaking, our likeness and conformity to Christ depend upon the life of our mind. It is through the mind alone that we apprehend what is presently unseen. It is not primarily by what we see, nor by how others make us feel, but most of all by what we hear that Christ is made to dwell in our hearts by faith. It is repeated throughout the Bible however that hearing has not had its proper effect until the heart is changed. In other words, upon hearing God’s Word, we are to “take it to heart” by remembering it and choosing to direct our focus upon it. These observations raise the call to focus our minds to the realm of Christian spirituality.
Now that we have identified the problem as one of a spiritual nature for the Christian, we turn our consideration to the question of how we might respond. When it comes to initiating and sustaining focus, how might we as Christians be successful in initiating and sustaining our focus? Is there a distinctively Christian solution to this problem?
The first distinctive of the Christian solution is of course the subject of our focus. Generic, secular solutions to this problem generally assume “work” is to be our subject of focus. However, this seems to imply focus is unnecessary outside the office. During the weekend, what should the subject of focus become? Perhaps a hobby or ones family may be recommended. In any case, we can see for the generic solution, the subject of focus is less discrete. One distinctive of the Christian point of view, is that the subject of our focus includes all the same as the generic view, (work, family, and recreation) but only as these areas of focus are subordinated to the purposes for which God has ordained them. In other words, they are not the subject of our focus except as they are derived from the supreme subject — God himself. As we set our minds upon him, his Word gives us instruction on the appropriate proportion of focus which is to be devoted to worship, work, family, and recreation. The fourth commandment recruits our focus in all days of the week to carry out our callings with a distinct remembrance of God and then to devote an entire day as one that is separated to his glory. We are here given in this command a divine ordering of life designed to cultivate our conviction that our primary focus is not in the things of this world, but in God and our eternal future with him in the land of promise.
The second distinctive of the Christian solution is the employment of tools in the assistance of our focus. This in my mind is the difference of most practical consequence. On the generic solution, the tools recommended for our focus — if any — are different and non-communal; for instance, training the mind via times of concentrated focus on non-stimulating things such as a wall, or the use of a working methodology like Pomodoro. In contrast, on the Christian solution we see the Church herself as the tool in God’s hand which he uses to excite and sustain our focus upon himself. What is prayer but a time of focus upon God? During the worship service, God “surrounds us with songs of our deliverance.” What is more memorable than a song? He invites us to “be still” in silence and open our ears to the reading and preaching of his Word by one trained and set apart for this very purpose. Finally, upon our hearing and believing this Word, we are given perhaps the most mundane of all elements in creation — water, bread, and wine — as signs and confirming seals of the things of deepest possible significance. The Church and her worship are mighty tools in the hand of God to excite and sustain the devotion of our focus upon him.
The third distinctive is related to the second, but warrants highlighting as its own feature. That is, the shared nature of our focus. The subject of our devoted attention is not an idiosyncrasy. We may all be members of very different families and engaged in great varieties of work and recreation, but we have received the same calling as those made in the image of the same God. This means we are not alone in our calling. We have partners in our devotion. This occurs on the sabbath of course as we address one another in song and so forth, but we also recognize that our conversations with one another can either help or hinder our focus. At Church on the Lord’s Day especially, before we discuss the latest game or news at work, we should remember such things dominate our minds every other day of the week. Throughout the week in our conversation we should bear in mind the words of our Lord Jesus who said, “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” In other words, our conversation is not only a potential help to our brothers and sisters in Christ, it is a reflection of our own subject of focus. If we only speak about the things of this world with our brothers and sisters, can it really be imagined that we would speak of them in an evangelistic way with the unbelieving in this world?
With the subject, tools, and companionship which our salvation in Christ provides, Christians are equipped to be more successful in the discipline of our minds. We have an advantage. Our lives can be an example to our neighbors of what is possible. We can be free of the burdens of this world and rejoice at all times. The end of our success with this problem is not that we feel better or achieve greater material progress, but that we bear God’s image with greater brightness. That we are more like our Lord Jesus whose heart is like an overflowing stream of water which relieves this world’s weariness. As the devotion of our focus intensifies, we become more like him and love him more deeply. As a consequence, the things which dominate the thoughts and hearts of unbelievers — career, family, recreation, and so on — we more and more see as theaters of God’s glory where we not only behold him and relish his goodness in giving us these callings, but as the God given context for our bold and courageous confession, declaration, and reflection of his great and holy name.
If the ministry of the Word and the subject of Christ is failing to excite our focus and nourish our souls, we should seek more and more to open our hearts before him. This problem of focus is ultimately one of subject. We are focusing on something. The real variable is not are we focusing or are we not, but upon what are we focused? Truly there is no better thing for the heart of mankind than the subject of his Creator and Redeemer — the Lord Jesus Christ. His glory and the mystery of his salvation is the only subject which can satisfy the deepest places of our soul. Indeed, his goodness and grace will satisfy us for all eternity. How much more will he not do so in the here and now? When other things take the place of our supreme focus they only make us despairing or arrogant and ultimately miserable. The meditation of our hearts only please God when they are set upon himself through faith. Anything else is sin as the Apostle tells us “that which proceeds not from faith is sin.”
