A Day-by-day devotional

June 4, 2023

Losing focus

Chronological One Year Bible Reading Plan: Psalm 103-106

Scripture of the Day: Philippians 4:8

I recently heard that when you’re playing difficult and quite technical passages on the violin where you have to mind the finger positions of your left hand, it is better to never lose sight of your finger movements. If, even for just a few seconds, you would shift your attention from your left hand to something else, like for instance, the conductor, the altered focus could mess up even a professional player’s playing. Jascha Heifetz, one of the best violinists of his time, and still revered in this generation, is said to have always looked at his violin and where and how he moves his fingers on the strings.

Music can make people transcend from the here and now, as well as the reality of the present moment, to another dimension where one leaves how things actually are. For this reason, a lot of musicians close their eyes to feel the music, and the moment. However, technically, closing ones eyes may lead to a loss of focus, when playing strings like the violin.

A lot of things can steal our attention. With plenty of distractions present in our day-to-day lives, it is easy to lose focus on what is essential. Distractions are a favorite tactic of the enemy to disrupt our lives. Just one little distraction could derail us from our journey.

Think about this. Your life is going on smoothly, and in as much as it is a cliché thing to say, as a Christian, you are keeping your eyes focused on Jesus. Life is good. Then, enters the enemy on the scene. He would inject just a tiny amount of distraction necessary to take your eyes off Jesus and turn them onto whatever could alter your mood. It can be as simple as a car who cut you off on the way to work. You were running late. You couldn’t help but swear and curse. With just that one incident, your entire day which started alright with a good-morning-prayer went from good to bad.

Paul knew very much that distractions could happen pretty easily even to the best of us. Although you try to keep your focus, it is easy to lose it. For this reason, he admonished the church in Philippi, which also translates to us today, to keep our eyes open and our thoughts in the right place. He gave a list of things that we need to fill our minds with, to avoid unnecessary distractions. He said that we need to think of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.

Why not, then, that instead of focusing on that driver who cut you off on the way to work, think about the lovely things that could happen at work? Or probably, how nobler it would be to forgive the driver and just brush the incident off?

However hard it might be, we always have a choice. We could turn our focus away from those which are worth our time and concentrate on the bad, or not lose focus and continue to see the positive side of things. If only we fix our eyes on Jesus daily, it would come as second nature that we never have to think about (Hebrews 12:2).

Reflection: Do you easily lose focus on the things worthy of your time and attention? What do you do to regain your focus and not be distracted?

Prayer: Dear God, with the many unnecessary distractions that surround me daily, help me not to lose sight of you. Guard my eyes from the destructive forces that the enemy throws my way to derail me from where I need to be at. Thank you for your guidance. Amen.