Faith Venture

How do you achieve focus on God? Paul wrote that we should pray without ceasing. What does that mean? The little book by an anonymous author called “The Way of the Pilgrim” charts the journey of a 19th Century Russian peasant who lost his family and his house and sets out on a spiritual journey.

As he travels, he ponders the advice of Paul. Then he happens upon a wise person who told him to pray the Jesus prayer 1,000 times a day. He gave the pilgrim a rosary upon whose beads he could count. The pilgrim began reciting the prayer aloud, but then discovered that he could just think them. Eventually the words were written on his heart and they were with him always. He then met many people on his journey who helped him including one rich man who sponsored his journey to the Holy Land. It’s a wonderful little book. Changed my life.

The prayer? “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Many people shorten it to “Jesus Christ have mercy on me.” Eventually you can just say one word and it will remind you of the whole thing (e.g., God, Jesus, mercy). This should help your focus–and your outlook on life. How can you mistreat others if you are always focused on God?

Tags: attention, attitude, Prayer

This entry was posted on November 2, 2010 at 6:16 am and is filed under Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.