Undivided Attention

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him...

- Psalm 37:7, ESV

We live in a culture that thrives on the flashy and shocking.

Sex, drugs, violence - all these things are part of marketing ploys to grab and keep our attention. They inundate us from left and right.

Someone doing homework with iPod headphones in, a cell phone in one hand, a TV on in the background - this is a common sight in college, high school and even in younger children.

Soccer, tennis, baseball, debate, dance, drama - we fill every spare moment of our day with some sort of activity.

Get the point yet? We as a people love things that are flashy, because they can hold our attention - at least for the time being. (Until we become numb, that is.) And we love to multi-task, to be as busy as possible.

It's no wonder drugs like Ritalin and Adderall are so prevalent in society. We're addicted to the hectic, the humming and the hyper, victims (and, simultaneously, self-causes) of a chronic busyness syndrome without remedy.

Even in conversation with someone else, we'll get distracted (or is it bored?) and not hear what the other person is saying. We'll ask a question and then not listen to the answer.

And we carry over this mindset to our relationship with Christ.

When we read our Bible, we get bogged down in the geneologies or the levitical laws or God's specifications for the ark of the covenant and all of a sudden find ourselves asleep, bored by inaction or our own lack of enthusiasm.

So we don't read our Bibles. There are more pressing things to do, better ways of spending our oh-so-precious time.

When we pray, our minds wander. We'll be praying for something, and then 10 minutes later - down a completely separate train of thought that likely has nothing to do with our prayer - remember what we were doing: Oh yeah, I was talking to my Creator. My bad.

So we don't pray. There are more pressing things to do, better ways of spending our oh-so-precious time.

We're getting nowhere. It becomes an endless cycle of circular reasoning, the self-perpetuating result becoming the oft-repeatable cause.

Why aren't we getting anywhere? We get so caught up in ourselves sometimes that we forget our relationship with the Lord is a relationship. And relationships involve maintenance, an effort to keep open the lines of communication in order to draw closer together.

Reuben Morgan tweeted: "We need to step out of the rush and the roar to seek God." That's exactly what we need to do.

What does that mean? Set aside time when we'll be able to do nothing but focus completely on Christ. That means doing whatever it takes to minimize distractions in order to enter into His presence rather than the Las Vegas of our minds, where hedonism is king.

Turn off the TV, the music, get away from the constant buzz of life and seek Him.

If you fall asleep when you pray with your eyes closed, open your eyes. If you get distracted when you pray with your eyes open, close your eyes. If you have trouble finishing a thought when you pray, pray out loud.

The key here is to realize that when we pray we aren't just muttering general requests or speaking in abstractions to a vague and distant God. We're talking one-and-one with the Creator of the universe and of us, who loves us so much and craves an intimate relationship with us.

He's God of everything, and yet we have His undivided attention. Can we not give Him ours?

And when we ask God a question, when we petition and pray for something, do we listen for an answer? Or do we talk and flap our jaws until we've said all we had to say, then open our eyes and go about our business?

One-sided conversations aren't fun. And it's no way to maintain a relationship. How can we expect to recognize an answer from Him if we don't tune ourselves to His voice?

Prayer is a conversation, not a monologue. And yet all too often we're guilty of reciting our soliloquy to the supernatural and then packing it in, checking that off our to-do list that lengthens by the second.

In this busy world, we need to quiet ourselves...and simply, humbly, seek the throne of Grace.

He's our Heavenly Father, and the Lord of All. He created us, molded us into being, sacrificed his only son for us, and one day will be coming back for us. He loves us more than we could ever fathom. And He deserves our undivided and uncompromised attention.

“Uncrowd my heart, O God,

until silence speaks

in your still small voice;

turn me from the hearing of words,

and the making of words, and the confusion of much speaking, 

to listening,

waiting,

stillness,

silence.”

- Thomas Merton, 20th century Catholic writer