Posts Tagged ‘attention’

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When Do You Think About Jesus

October 31, 2014

Computers, networking devices, software, how to use all of this to make manufacturing more efficient and effective. That’s where most of my attention is during the day.

Many, or most, of you face the same challenge. Most of your attention is on where you earn a living.

I thought about this while reading some interesting thoughts from a guy who is on the pastoral staff of a large church. Gosh, most of his thoughts must be on Jesus. Right? Or maybe not.

So where does Jesus fit in? When do you think of God?

Jesus had to have spent much time thinking about God. He always had an answer. He couldn’t have spent all day talking about the weather with his followers. We know that sometimes his attention was diverted–a woman touching him to be healed, people with diseases coming to him asking for healing, rich guys asking for advice, teachers asking him trick questions (just like they do yet today in school).

Maybe we need a post-it note on our computer screen to remind us to stop and think of Jesus? Or maybe an alert on our calendar that pops up to remind us to pray.

The reason I like Daniel so much, you know, the guy who administered the Babylonian empire and who was so good that when the Persians conquered them they kept him as top administrator, the reason I like him is that he withdrew from his office three times a day to go to his room and pray.

It is that intentional habit to stop what he’s doing and pray. Did he have an alert? Without a computer to popup an alert on the screen, did he have an assistant look in his office and alert him? Was it just built into his brain that it was time o pray?

How can I divert my attention to Jesus during the day to remember my source of inspiration?

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Optimum Communication

October 29, 2014

My daughter recommended the book “Crucial Conversations” the other day. I now recommend it to you. It is a useful guide for both personal conversations (say, with a spouse) as well as for business settings whether for an individual situation or for meetings.

Achieving dialog forms the platform of the teaching. But perhaps we wonder what true dialog is.

Reading about Socrates as a youth, both through Plato’s writing and through a magazine series on the subject that I’ve long since lost and forgotten the title, bred my ideal of dialog.

A dialog is a conversation among two or more human beings on a topic that:

  • treats each person as an adult
  • moves the idea(s) forward to greater depth and understanding
  • is focused on the topic not the self

Accomplishing dialog requires focus on the other–what is said, not said, emotion, gestures. It allows for pauses as the conversation shifts from person to person. The reason for pauses is to give time to think rather than thinking while the other is talking.

It requires respect, in yourself as well as the others.

I have had great dialogs during business dinners (we don’t talk “business” the whole time, if at all) about life in the Spirit. I long for more dialogs about Jesus and the Spirit. They bring such joy.

There is much more to the book. I’ll share later. If you are about to have an important conversation with spouse, co-worker or boss, grab this book quickly.

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Prayer–Slow Down and Listen

October 16, 2014

“Most conversations are a monologue with witnesses.” (Attributed to Mark Twain.)

Is your prayer life like that?

Yesterday I wrote about meditation and contemplation. The foundation of both is to slow down our busy brains and focus. The direct or indirect focus is on God.

Jesus showed his followers an example at the Temple one time. There was a religious man standing in a conspicuous place praying loudly so as to assure that everyone knew that he was a religious man praying. Then there was a “sinner” who was kneeling alone apart from others, praying. Jesus said that those who pray with many fine words get their reward there. The other man got his reward from God.

Even if you don’t practice daily meditation or contemplation in the strict sense of the words, it pays great dividends to pause and sit quietly between all the words you say.

It’s not that it’s wrong to pray in words. Or to pray publicly when the occasion warrants. But as a daily practice, praying with no more words than necessary to the One who knows already what’s on your heart is much more freeing. Then to stop and listen heaps benefits upon the soul.

Often when I pray alone, I sit in silence and just picture the person or situation in my mind and focus my energy and attention on them. My heavenly Father knows. I’m just adding my spirit. Focusing on others.

It’s OK to focus on yourself, too. Just not exclusively. Once again a friend told me of the power that has come to him simply by praying that God lead someone into his life. Trust me, it’s uncanny.

I can think back over the past years of my life and identify many times when God eventually answered my prayers-usually when he knew I was ready and that the proper opportunity was presented.

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Perception and Reality

October 13, 2014

“I liked it better out there. The skies are always blue. Here, the skies are always gray.”

Talking with an acquaintance the other day.

Of course, she returns to Ohio in the changing seasons. We get a lot of cloud cover from fronts and changeableness. Some geographies have pretty much the same weather year around.

But is her observation the reality? Is your observation reality? Or maybe your perception creates your reality?

Supposedly this story came from Carl Sandberg, but I heard it through Earl Nightingale.

Seems a farmer was standing by his field leaning on a fence post contemplating the crops and the weather when a stranger drove by and stopped. “What sort of people live around here?” the stranger asked.

“what sort of people lived where you are from?”

“Well, they are lying, cheating, miserable people.” “I expect you’ll find the people around here the same way.”

Second stranger comes by. “What sort of people live around here?” “What sort of people were there where you’re from?” “Well, they are honest, hard-working people.” “I expect you’ll find the people around here to be the same.”

The point, of course, is that our perceptions often cloud our view of reality. Just look at politics. If you are hard-core whatever, you’ll interpret all events through that filter.

When you can throw that filter away and see reality, then you can start to grow.

That’s one goal of meditation. To calm the mind and begin to focus just on the moment. Only as things are.

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Prayer Is Not Difficult

September 17, 2014

Jude, the next-to-last book in the Bible, warns us about the dangers of trusting and following the wrong people. The writer advises prayer as the answer to building us up and keeping us on the right path.

When I first started on the meditative path many years ago, I was frustrated (I guess like the disciples) about the supposed lack of teaching about how to pray and meditate in the Bible. We are instructed to pray and to meditate and contemplate the Word.

Jesus went alone to pray, but we know nothing about his usual prayers. He did teach one time on the subject. The answer was not to pray like the religious people with big words and gestures and spectacle. He said to go by yourself and pray simply. He gave an example which we have turned into ritual–the Lord’s Prayer (or the Our Father).

This is basically just a conversation. Simple words. From the heart.

Last week at Willow Creek, Bill Hybels taught on the scene from ancient times when Elijah challenged the priests of Baal who had captured the official religious life of Israel. The priests of Baal prayed by shouting, dancing, cutting themselves. Elijah prayed just a simple prayer.

Sometimes in prayer, our focus may wander. So, we may repeat a phrase. Maybe one of the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. Or a favorite verse. But this can be continually simplified.

It’s like when I first learned guitar after having been a percussionist. My friend said, remember that just two notes can be a chord. Just so, you can go to just one or two words. I repeat the word “God”. Others make like spirit. Or love. Just by sitting (or standing or walking or lying) and focusing on your word can calm your thoughts and cause you to enter into the presence of God.

Then you can focus your heart on what matters to you at the time. Even without words. Just focus on others, your ministry, yourself, whatever is a burden at that time.

Prayer is both simple and powerful. Try it sometime.

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Living Life Tricks

September 15, 2014

Steve Jobs was an enigma for those of us deeply immersed in technology. He was a genius who drove the Pixar movie studio to become a significant force in Hollywood. He was a genius who rescued the company he founded, Apple, from the doldrums and not only created a company with immense financial value, he brought us some great computers (I have a MacBook Pro), the iPad (which I’m using to compose and publish this post), the iPod (where I stored my music and podcast library and used when I worked out), and the iPhone (which replaced my iPod, Palm Pilot and various mobile phones).

He also was an arrogant jerk by all reports, but people who worked for him were intensely loyal.

He also left behind some ideas worth hacking into our own lives to become more productive and meaningful.

Focus

I read a story about Steve when he first returned to Apple and sat in a product review meeting. I use the story often when advising companies or people.

It seems he listened to product managers describe an extensive array of products that Apple was producing. He got up and said something to the effect of let’s cut out the crap. We’ll focus on a limited number of desktop computers and a limited number of laptops. And we’ll make these great.

And they did.

Focus is so important. We get distracted so easily into so many things. Then we accomplish little. And it is so easy to slide out of focus.

Throw the crap out of your life. Focus on the few things that are important. Children, family, the one thing that will make your work or ministry most effective. Be great at it.

Delegate

There is a story that comes from Apple, but it is a technique I used in the mid-80s when I managed project managers designing and building machines.

We would get toward the end of a project and the customer would come in and things would be floundering. I’d get up, go to the white board and draw a matrix. I’d list the tasks to be done, who was responsible, and the due date for completion. It’s said that at Apple all meeting should end with a list of tasks and a directly responsible individual.

If you are leading a team of any kind, or even within your family, practice defining tasks and delegating by putting someone in charge. Some managers think that they need to do it all. Some people think that they need to do it all. Say no and delegate to others.

Get more experiences

Jobs was a legend in the technology industry. He had a Liberal Arts background (I don’t think he completed the degree). Famously, he started just auditing a bunch of classes just for the heck of it. He took a calligraphy class. From that experience, he made the first Macintosh a much better machine and revolutionized the computer industry.

I appreciate that because I had a technology background but didn’t finish that degree. I wound up with a Liberal Arts degree and became a staunch believer in the classic Liberal Arts. Not as “soft” subjects that are an easy way to a degree like it became in the 70s.

I took a wide variety of courses that confounded my advisor. Math, extra foreign languages, writing, literature, philosophy, international politics and culture. I learned to learn, think, communicate. The basics of an educated person.

  • Take some way-out courses
  • Travel
  • Meet new people
  • Say yes to one new work experience or ministry
  • Learn another language

Someone on TV used to have “stupid dog tricks.” Try doing some smart life tricks. And it’s never too late.

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How To Come to Understand Righteousness

August 28, 2014

We find in Proverbs 2:

making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding

leads to:

For The Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding;

concluding:

Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

This is like one of those “if…then” statements in computer programming. Only in this case, it is God teaching us about our programming.

If we tune into God, because God gives wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, then we will understand.

Henry Cloud, speaking last Sunday at Willow Creek Community Church, told a story about “Joey” and his dad.

Seems dad owns a very large business. He is thinking about succession planning and wants Joey to take over. But Joey doesn’t seem to have the fire in him to run a big company. Dad wanted to keep on providing experiences for Joey in the hopes that he might eventually catch on. Henry told dad, the fire must come from Joey. It can’t come from dad, or anyone else.

God is that way. He is always out there ready for us. But we must be the ones to catch on and ask.

If we tune in to God. How do we do that? First we decide. We’ll do a 15-minute “chair time” with God, reading from the Bible and listening for what God is saying. Then we find a small group of like-minded people with whom to share. That would be a great start.

Oh–a forewarning to you poor readers. I just got my sweaty little hands on 1,500 pages of N.T. Wright’s “Paul and The Faithfulness of God.”

In my college years while full of the liberalism of the time, I had great dislike for Paul and his supposed dislike of women and his preaching conformity to the state. (Hey, it was the late 60s. Need I say more?)

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Paul greatly. I can look beyond all the vast misinterpretations that have been spouted as theology. Romans is the greatest spiritual formation book I’ve ever read.

So, there will be more of Paul to come.

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Get Connected To The Outside System

August 27, 2014

Successful, or as the Bible says “fruitful”, people have the ability to see the patterns in their lives that don’t work. They go through the door and leave those old patterns behind to “Never Go Back” and get caught up in them. So says  Henry Cloud in his new book.

This morning as I was about to post to this blog, I had no connection to the Internet. I was cut off from the outside world, so to speak. I couldn’t post. I couldn’t check news. I couldn’t see what happened to all the soccer games where I’m responsible for the officials. I was disconnected. My post would be late–way late.

Let me tie these two thoughts together.

People get into a pattern of behavior. The pattern becomes hard wired in the brain. But…it is possible to change the pattern. You do have to go outside the pattern.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that  in a closed system chaos will occur. So, we need to become an open system to go beyond ourselves. We need to get connected to God. Then we can intentionally begin to develop new patterns to replace the old ones.

And that is just what successful/fruitful people do. They go out of the door and Never Go Back to the old, unsuccessful pattern.

This all leads me to some deep meditation, though. Several times in my life I have gone into business with men who were openly Christian. You know, they always  talk about it, they have tracts laying out, talk of going to church meetings, and so forth.

Every one of them owes me money. Every one of them backed out on his word. That’s a pattern.

Now, I’m about to make an investment into a company with avowedly Christian people.

Am I about to fall into the old pattern?

I think not. This time I have done much more due diligence. This time I have taken months to understand the situation. This time I think I got connected.

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Getting Outside Yourself

August 15, 2014

When I was younger, I tried writing poetry. There was a recurring theme that just happened. It wasn’t planned, necessarily. The theme was getting outside yourself to get to know yourself.

Leo Babauta, in a recent blog post, talked about living in a little personal bubble and how we need to get out of that bubble.

What was it, 30 or 40 years ago, when Time magazine labelled my generation as the “Me Generation”? Books have been written over the past few years about the age of Narcissism. I recently counted more than 10 recent books on living with or relating with a narcissist.

I don’t think that “me first” is unique to this generation, though. When I reflect on literature of every age even into the most ancient texts, I read men and women full of wisdom teaching about getting out of that “personal bubble” and living first for God and then for others.

One of the top goals I had for leading people into missions is to get them to see the plight of others and perhaps get outside their personal bubble and begin to think of others first instead of themselves.

One of the reasons to practice Spiritual Disciplines such as study, prayer, celebration and service is to put yourself on the track of placing your attention on God and others.

One of my small groups is studying Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur. The author takes us into the personalities of Jesus’ inner circle of disciples and look at how he changed them. Regarding Phillip, he writes that Phillip was the sort of person who needs a list. But Jesus gave guidelines. Jesus gave him the freedom from lists to go out and concentrate on other people.

Jesus guidelines? Love The Lord your God with all your soul, and heart, and mind and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s all about getting out of your bubble and living for others. What actually happens is the joy and satisfaction and fulfillment you were seeking from within your personal bubble doesn’t arrive until you get out of your bubble.

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Changing Others

July 23, 2014

When was the last time you tried to change someone? How did it go for you?

Leo Babauta doesn’t write as often at his blog as he did a few years ago, but he recently posed that question at Zen Habits.

He proceeded to discuss ways that you can change rather than getting that other person to change.

You can change your attitude toward them. Become more forgiving, perhaps. Recognizing that you, yourself, do not change easily (when was the last time you tried to change your eating habits in an attempt to lose weight?).

You can change your intention for them. Stop trying to remake them in your mind.

But then I thought, “I write from an evangelical Christian point of view. We believe we can change people.”

It’s not simply “bringing Jesus into your life.” How many people do you know that have an addictive personality? They became Christian and switched their addiction to Jesus? It’s a far better addiction, but they still haven’t truly lived into the peace and joy of a life fully lived in Jesus.

But many of us truly have changed. But we did it not so much through urging of others (although that may have prodded a few of us), but maybe more through the example of others.

As we changed our focus and attitude, we began to live more in prayer and study. We slowed down our inner processes a little. Began to recognize others–their needs, desires.

I’ve not only seen that happen, I’ve experienced it.

But it didn’t come because someone else tried to change me by force of will. I just lived into an example. How Jesus lived, and how some of his followers lived that I thought was pretty cool.

So, check out Leo’s list. But then look at how two of his ideas for accepting the other’s problems actually, over time, can help them grow. Not reflecting back to them their bad habits (say, anger) and providing an example of a better way to live.

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