Posts Tagged ‘living’

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Three Types of Focus

March 21, 2014

Can you maintain focus long enough to read a book in the Bible? A chapter? A story? Can you read a book?

Many people feel that a combination of today’s information deluge and our attachment to the instant gratification of smart phones with email, Facebook, Twitter, and so on are ruining us of our ability to sustain focus on a task.

This problem can affect relationships, career, and a living a good life.

My current reading is Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. You may have heard of Goleman through a previous book, Emotional Intelligence. If you have not read that one, grab it today.

Focus can be described as placing one’s attention on one task/event. When you are at a reception and talking to someone, do you focus on them? Or on everything else? Or have an urge to pull out the old iPhone and check for texts?

Focus affects ability to study, pray, even worship.

Goleman says that leaders especially, and everyone eventually, need to cultivate three types of focus.

  • Inner–keeping you in touch with intuition, values, reflection, making better decisions
  • Other–building relationships with others, connecting with others, being aware of other people
  • Outer–lets us navigate in the greater world around us

As that Star Wars Sage, Yoda, says, “Your focus is your reality.”

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Where Your Heart Is

February 28, 2014

Did you see the pictures coming from the Ukraine this week about the way the ruling elite lived? The personal palace of the guy who was President for really only a short period of time? Some members of Parliament?

Maybe because I wrote some thoughts about materialism on Monday I’m more sensitive to more news about it. The Ukraine is not a poor country in the ways of some really impoverished countries are, but even in those the leaders seem to be able to amass fortunes and live in luxury.

And it’s not just there. Especially since World War II, think of how many people go off to Washington, D.C. to “serve the people” as middle class citizens and leave as wealthy, entitled people.

And it doesn’t stop there. Have you ever worked in corporations where not just the top guy or top level are enriching themselves but also managers all the way down are figuring out ways to beat the system and grab some perks or additional money.

Preachers are not immune. Even volunteers serving local organizations succumb to the temptation to use their positions to enrich themselves.

How can these people spend so much time cultivating friends and figuring out ways to enrich themselves while supposedly working for the betterment of the people who entrust them?

Well, it must be in the heart. Jesus warned us–we cannot serve two masters. And if we choose the wrong master, we will not live in eternal life. Justice is usually served to the greedy ones. But even if not in a civil sense, it is in a spiritual sense. And it is life in the Spirit that matters.

None of us are immune to the temptation. The scale may be different, but the heart is the same. We cannot serve both God and money. What do our lives say about our choice?

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Beware of Materialism

February 24, 2014

I was always aware of the subtle irony when I worked in product development at a company that made products for wealthy people. It’s not that I’m completely non-materialist–I’ve always like tools and gadgets–but that having material goods has not been a priority of mine since somewhere in my college days.

Bible Study Magazine contains an article this issue that is a story about the president of China Bible Seminary in Hong Kong. Julie Wu grew up there, but obtained a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in California.

She discusses the difficulties of talking with people whose religion is Buddhism or ancestor worship. Today’s materialist culture in Hong Kong, which she compares to the West, presents the biggest challenge to talking to people about spiritual things.

“Materialism powerfully draws away Christians’ attention to God and our dependence on Him. It leaves us with no time to develop a closer or deeper relationship,” she says. This orientation toward life leaves one open to sin or helplessness.

Jesus, the Proverbs, and countless other teachers have preached on the problems of materialism. This is not a distinctively 20th-21st Century problem. I find it interesting that people were teaching about that some 4,000 years ago.

Every once in a while, it is good to step back and do a self-check. What am I holding on to? Are my urges pointed toward acquiring something material? Am I able to control those urges?

Early in my career, I was interviewing for a position whose compensation would have been substantially greater than what I was making. “What would you do with the additional money?” the interviewer inquired.

A good thought to ponder.

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Debating Society or Living in Love

January 24, 2014

A teacher recently explained something of the difference between the Reformed view of Scripture and the Dispensationalist view. I found it interesting to learn that I was closer to the Reformed view than I’d have expected.

The Reformed strain begins with Luther, then Calvin and others of the 16th and 17th Century. The Dispensationalists (precursors of much of today’s “fundamentalists”) originated in the 19th Century.

By the way, these are Protestant strains of thought. There are other theologies alive in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. I say that lest we think that we’ve discovered the one true way through some philosopher.

I’ve always found it instructive to read the earliest sources and tend to find writings that seek to explain the “secrets” of the Bible to be less than instructive.

To me, the Bible exists to show us how to live our lives in relationship with God. What would our lives look like if we did so.

I thought about this in relationship to theology and organized religion. I realized that over the course of the past 35 years or so, I’ve spent very little time thinking about religion. I used to subscribe to theology journals, but found the playing of mind games merely entertaining–not instructive.

There was a song that appeared in the mid-late 60s I think co-written by Paul Stookey of the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary (and I’ve forgotten the title), that starts “Sunday morning very bright, I read your book by colored light that came in through the pretty window picture.” It’s about a person who shows up in church at times but finds it not nourishing. In one verse, he says they passed a plate and I just had time to write note that said “I believe in You.”

Jesus said we’d know his followers by their love. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve forgotten that simple description in our quest for theological purity (of a philosophy developed 1600 or 1900 years after Jesus) or doctrinal argument or unlocking the “secrets” of the Bible.

What have we done to show love today? It’s just that simple. And that hard.

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