Focus

Just to warn you, this blog isn´t going to tell you what I´ve been up to recently, or what´s new in Uruguay. Rather, it´s a collection of thoughts and ramblings, a sort of stream of consciousness, if you will.

One of the things I´ve been thinking about and learning, re-learning, or remembering recently is the difference between our (my) focus as I live this life on the third planet from "our" sun and the focus of God. When I start to have questions or face difficulties, when things become uncertain or the future is unclear (aka always), I often start to wonder why God isn't being clearer, or start expecting specific answers to questions I want answered. That is, in times of uncertainty, difficulty, or suffering, I want God to come through for me. I am self-focused.

But that's not God's focus. Not to say that He doesn't come through for us or doesn't care about us, but rather that our self-focus is not God's focus. There are numerous examples of this in the Bible, and the ones that have been on my mind recently are Job, Paul, & Jesus.

First, Job, just because I listed him first: Job basically goes through what we would likely consider a living hell. He loses everything, from his property to his family, and to top it of is subjected to some tortorous diseases. That alone makes most of my "sufferings" seem fairly minor. Understandably (meaning I would feel the same way), Job is confused, upset, and even a bit righteously (self-righteously?) angry with God. He does not understand why in his faithful service to God (the beginning of the story identifies him as perfect!!) he has suddenly been subjected to all of this horror. God lets him ramble, yell, and philosophize for awhile, and then sort of ignores everything Job said in His response (that is, he does not respond specifically to much of Job's questioning). Why? Focus. God basically tells Job, look, I am the Creator, you are Job, and you cannot in the broken world you live in understand or see my will and ways. His response is one that reminds of how awesome He truly is, and leaves us worshipping, glorifying, and repenting of our self-focus. It's true that Job did not deserve what he got and his righteous anger at God was not without justification, but that is all from a paradigm of self-focus. It is not about us, it is about God, and when we are focused on Him, no matter the circumstance we are left in awe and wonder, glorifying His name.

Next, Paul: Paul talks about in a number of places all the things he suffered, but always follows it up by saying how wonderful those things were (though he clearly suffered and was not just deluded, able to live smiling without pain through all of his intense physical distress) because they glorified God! Paul's focus on God is so fixed and steadfast that no matter how much abuse he takes from cynics and doubters, no matter how many shipwrecks, imprisonments, and beatings, he is able to glorify God. It is not that Paul is some sort of superhuman or that his pain receptors were not quite as sensitive as ours, but rather that he was not self-focused. He was God focused and that made all the difference.

Finally, Christ: Right before He is about to be crucified, the full knowledge of what He is about to experience really hits Him, and this knowledge puts Him in a place of anxiety and stress, such that He sweat blood! Perhaps you´ve seen one of those videos detailing the physiology or crucifixion, or read one of the medical accounts of how it would have been. Probably one of the most unpleasant things man can experience. Christ, being fully God, knew all of this, and being fully man, could translate that knowledge into the intense pain He would experience, and that did not leave Him leaping for joy. Yet, He was not focused on Himself, so His prayer was that He would not have to experience that pain, but if there was no other way, that His Father´s will be done. And it was, and it was not pleasant for Him. So unpleasant that He cries out in agony asking God why He has forsaken Him, the Son. Intense suffering. Yet in it God was glorified and the world and each of us were given the chance for true healing.

All of these examples remind me how silly it is when I encounter difficulties to be constantly expecting God to swoop in and just fix it all, because that is nothing more than a religion that is focused on me, one that worships and glorifies me and my "right" to comfort, not God and His perfection. In a more general sense this is easily seen when people with faith in God experience great suffering or trials, and as a result their faith weakens or disappears. Our own self-focus tells us that because we worship God and pray to God He is compelled to make that sort of intense suffering go away. Of course, that is not the case and He did not even do that for His Son, but all in the purpose of His greater plan. When we are focused on Him we can see that greater plan, and can move away from a religion focused on self. My focus definitely isn't there yet. It is very hard to have that perfect God focus because I do not always trust God and His grace.

If it all ended there, this might be kind of a depressing thought, because on the one hand it is not at all about us, it is all about God, and when we suffer in this life we might not always get the comfortable result we want, because that comfortable result is not a truly perfect result, it only seems so in our focus. On the other hand, despite it not being about us, this perfect God loves each one of us so incredibly much that He sacrifices for us! That is why He allowed His Son to go through that intense suffering (can you imagine allowing the person you love most be tortured to death in such a way?), out of His unending, unconditional love for us. In fact, that love is so great that not only did He die for the world, but He died for me individually, for you individually, and He would have done it for just one individual. Talk about reckless, wasteful, incredible, amazing love. Grace. So even though we cannot see "The Plan" and struggle to move beyond our self-focus, God sacrifices for us, giving us the chance at a true change and transformation, the offer of guidance and relationship, and unending, unconditional love. Wow. And to think my response is to wonder why He won't fix this problem I'd like to see go away. This doesn't really have anything to do with the post, I just really like this picture, and the building being reflected is one of my favorite in Montevideo. I guess maybe you could get deeply philosophical and draw some connections between reflection, seeing in a mirror, focus, and the like, but I'm not going to do that here, this post is already too long

If you have responses to this post I would love to hear them. I wrote it off the top of my head just based on stuff I have been thinking about for the past few weeks, so I apologize if my paraphrasing of Biblical stories is not 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the theology I can give you some of the specific verses I had in mind, and I'd love to hear any additional thoughts, comments, questions, or corrections. bradenmog (at) gmail (dot) com.

I was going to give some real-life examples I have seen of our self-focus that I have personally witnessed, but this got way too long and I will do it in the next post, so depending on how much you liked this post, skip or wait patiently for the next.