Podcast Short: What Are We Focusing On?

Life Talk with Craig Lounsbrough

What Are We Focusing On?

We can be very focused people. We can decide that there is something that we want to do, or not do, or get, or not get, or complete, or not complete, or argue, or not argue, or whatever it is that we want to focus on. Indeed, we can be very focused people. In fact, we can be focused to the point of being quite stubborn about whatever it is that we’re focusing on.

The issue is not about being focused, as that’s simply part of our nature. The issue is what we’re focusing on. What has captured our attention? What has challenged us, or captivated us, or made us angry, or riled us up and incited us to some kind of action, whatever that action might be? What is it that we have latched onto, or what is it that has latched on to us? What is it that’s seized the whole of our imagination and inspired us to throw off all caution, step up and run after dreams of the most magnificent sort? Or, at the other end of that spectrum, what’s frightened us to the point that we’ve turned away from our dreams, fled in utter panic, and rushed off to hide ourselves in whatever place we feel has afforded us a safe place to hide? What are we focusing on?

Whatever it is that we’ve given ourselves over to and focused all of our energies on, it’s typically something that we don’t have. Whatever it is, it’s something that we’re ‘not’ in possession of. It’s something that’s eluded us, possibly over and over and over. Or something that’s teasing us because we can’t quite get our hands on it. It might be something that we’ve got pieces and parts of, but we can’t quite get enough of it to have the whole of whatever it is. It could be that critical and absolutely essential next step in a career, or something that’s just enough of whatever it is to nudge our position in our social group to that next cherished and sought after level. It could be that one thing that will give us the financial prowess that we yearn for, or that bit of power that will allow us to leverage ourselves to some ascended position, or that one last resource that will, once and for all, liberate us from the grind of the daily grind.

But whatever it is that we’re focusing on, it’s something that we don’t have. It’s something that we don’t possess. It’s something that’s not in our grasp, or our control, or our bank account, or in our collection of successes and accomplishments that finally defines us in a way that we feel we are worth being defined as. Whatever it is, it’s something that we don’t have. And that’s something to think about.

That means that, quite frankly, we’re not focusing on what we ‘do’ have. What we do have falls into irrelevance because it’s not what we don’t have. It appears that part of the value of what we have (possibly the greater part) is more about achieving it and less about possessing it. Somehow its value seems to get diminished by the sheer acquisition of it. And so we press it aside in the famished pursuit of the next thing, when what we possess is the very thing that’s allowed us to pursue the next thing. We lose the appreciation of all of the resources that we have as we immerse ourselves in the race for what we don’t have. We sit amidst all of the resources that nurture us, protect us, feed us, grant us rest when we need it, give us needed refuge when the day has battered us, and solace when the world around us is too loud and overly demanding. And we end up focusing on everything but that. We focus on what we don’t have, and in doing so, we abuse and neglect what we do have.

And so, maybe you should take moment and ask what am I focusing on? What has my attention? Where are my energies being directed? But more importantly than all of that, maybe you should think about what you’re ‘not’ focusing on? For that is going to be far more telling.

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.’ And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

• Luke 12:18-21