My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Proverbs 4:20
Why do I feel like this month of February moved faster than the speed of light? Wasnt valentine celebration just a few days ago?… And today is 26th already!. Quite amazing I must say.
So, 20th of February was my 12th wedding anniversary and I was a bit under the weather that day.Phew!..
As I laid in bed waiting and hoping for a throbbing headache to subside, I couldn’t keep from reminiscing about the past, wondering how twelve years already flew by and how the whole journey had been. Every bitter and sweet part of it!
While I thanked God for the journey so far, I remembered in a flash, how an old lady while welcoming me to hubby’s church a few weeks after the wedding asked if she could give me some tips on having a successful marriage.
Out of the few tips she gave me, one stood out in particular. She said “You must learn to overlook a lot of things to make this particular marriage work!”.
It didn’t really make sense until later.
Well, I’m not going to write anything here about the peculiarities of my marriage but I’m glad to let you know that an old lady’s advice was worth it after all!
Being naturally expressive, taking my eyes off any issues without airing my opinion was a major struggle for me. I just had to speak out and clear my mind! But a few years into my marriage, I knew that I could no longer continue paying attention to certain things. I would have to choose my focus for things to work!
For all the times the devil drew my attention to things I couldn’t stand, the Spirit of God also drew my attention to other things i could build on or work with. And for the times I focused on some strong reasons to justify my desire to walk away, the Spirit of God showed me stronger reasons to stay put.
As a matter of fact, one of the stern statements I’ve heard from the Holy Spirit whenever I had issues in marriage, relationships and business is “You are focusing on unnecessary things”!…
So, I am constantly reminded to pay attention to the things that matter the most; to focus on God’s mandate for me and to pursue all my dreams and visions from a place of peace and righteousness. Don’t be surprised a lot of people do all the things they do from a place of envy, anger and revenge!
Truth is, as long as we are here on earth, several things will contend daily for our attention but interestingly, God expects us to choose our focus every time!.
For the Christian in particular, the successful completion of our assignments will largely depend on how well we can identify and eliminate distractions on the road to destiny.
I have realised that one major thing that God loves to gain -and retain- from humans through the preaching of the word, church attendance, books and a whole lot of other Christian resources, is attention.
Interestingly, the one and only thing the devil has been after since his fall, is the attention of man! I bet you already know that the enemy of our souls will stop at nothing to secure an opportunity to latch onto our attention for good.
Or how do you think he can steal dreams and visions; kill a believer’s passion for righteousness, destroy homes, families and truncate destinies if not by enabling distractions so his victims take their eyes off the Sheperd.
And what does one make of the regular advancement in technology and the sophistication it brings to our world?
Apparently, technology has come to stay and we can not wish the internet or social media away but a responsible believer must be intentional when choosing contents to give time or attention to.
Just the other day, a simple but offensive statement almost distracted me from my resolve to be pleasant and nice to someone no matter what. But of course, I quickly chose my focus again.
And just this evening I captured one of my customer’s WhatsApp status and it says “simply because the past is tapping on your shoulder does not mean you should look back!”.
Ahoy! ….So the past is also a bidder for the attention of man! It is the most wanted commodity!
Having learned the importance and value of my attention and how I wield so much power in determining its direction, everyday I choose…