Your Attention Please!

Look straight ahead,
and fix your eyes on what lies before you.
Proverbs 4:25

Your attention is worth more than gold in today’s economy.

Advertizers claw and scratch for it. Social media platforms are psychologically engineered to hook you and keep you coming back for more. Simply put, this is the highest level of competition for our attention the world has ever seen.

What keeps your attention over time will win your heart in the long haul. So what are you giving it to? Undoubtedly a lot of it is good stuff. But you and I both know, when good stuff becomes God stuff, our life starts to fall apart.

• Relaxation is a gift—until it turns into laziness.
• Work is godly—until it becomes your identity.
• Sports are awesome—until they become a constant escape.
• Money is a good tool—until it becomes the measuring stick of your worth.

. . . and if you don’t see your thing on there, feel free to add it. Because we all have ‘em.

I don’t think there’s a better passage to turn us back to wonder, awe, and excitement at God’s presence than what C.S. Lewis said about our desires:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

What has your attention?