Guard your attention

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Our Twitter and Facebook habits make praying harder than ever.
But before we look at the stats, let’s take a moment to appreciate the magic of conscious life, the capacity to focus on one thing, like this article and this unfolding sentence, following it along until it ends with a little dot. No doubt, as a reader, you’re fighting the chronic digital urge to skim.
We give our attention because we have attention to give. With our attention we can attend to one thing and avert from another thing.
The power to fixate is part of God’s miracle in creation. Without attention, faith would be impossible. God not only created us to live and breathe and walk, like his other creatures; he wants us also to believe in him and to trust his word, to listen. The full scope of our affectional life becomes precious when we see it as our capacity to attend.
Mind-setting is the basis of our devotion to Christ, and it gives rise to every love and longing in our heart. What our eyes linger on, our hearts will learn to love. What our hearts love, our eyes will linger on. When by supernatural grace Christ becomes the highest prize in our life, then he becomes the supreme focus of our attention. Thus, Paul challenges us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).
But in the digital age, our attention faces multiple tensions. Each day we give our eyes to movies and new music and books and online articles and viral GIFs and hot Facebook trends. We have only so many waking hours, only so many caffeinated hours, only so many ways to listen, watch, and read even a small fraction of the content that endlessly pours in from our feeds and our friends.
The span of our attention is of great concern to God. Long before the media age brought with it profound changes in how we reproduced and multiplied pages in the printing press, and long before breaking news (and fake news) buzzed and beeped on our smartphones, God was always concerned with our focus.

Gospel Attention

Gospel faithfulness is about attention. In eighty places in the Bible, God’s people are called to take heed, which is the urgent language of attention.
Specifically:
  • We must keep God’s word on the forefront of our minds at all times, and in all scenarios (Deuteronomy 6:4–9; 11:18–19).
  • We must prioritize our days for the purpose of living undistractedly (1 Corinthians 7:35).
  • We must not allow the business of life to consume us (Luke 10:38–42).
  • We must never let the trivialities of this world cause us to neglect the riches of the gospel (Matthew 13:22–23).
  • We must be watchful (1 Corinthians 16:13).
  • We must be sober-minded (Titus 2:2; 1 Peter 1:13; 4:7; 5:8).
  • We must remain eternally alert (Revelation 3:2–3; 16:15).
In all these areas, and others, God calls us to guard our attention.

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