Narrow my Focus

I wrote this post early Saturday morning the day of our retreat:

I’m finding this process so interesting.  In the time that I am spending reading, praying, during our meetings – some things are starting to come to the surface for me.  What is really sticking with me is that it is about relationship.  This isn’t really a new revelation.  I have known for as long as I can remember that God is calling us into relationship with Him.  But this knowing has changed and evolved.

I think right now God is really driving home to me this relationship with others.  Of course, the most important commandment is to love God and to love others.  So, if God defines loving Him as being in right relationship with Him then loving others must require a right relationship.  It seems that Jesus’ compassion stemmed from this.  He was compassionate and moved by those that he encountered.  He took time to know them and to learn their hurts.

From the movie, “Portrait of a Radical-The Jesus Movement” they talk about living a simple life.  They reference that we can’t see clearly through the murky water, the mud isn’t settling at the bottom because we are under an avalanche of distraction.  What am I not seeing through my own avalanche of distraction?  How can I be attentive to others and be in right relationship with them if I can’t even see them or be attentive to when they are in need?

Then it seems to circle around to what I read in “Tattoos on the Heart” about narrowing our focus.   Here is what he wrote:  “Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel says, ‘How narrow is the gate that leads to life.”  Mistakenly, I think, we’ve come to believe that this is about restriction.  The way is narrow.  But it really wants us to see that narrowness is the way.” “Our choice is not to focus on the narrow but to narrow our focus.  The gate leads to life is not about restriction at all.  It is about an entry into the expansive.”

What if I learned to live more simply?  If my focus were narrowed in on that – to live simply so I could focus on being in right relationship.  What if I learned to not cram so much in the day that I was always in a hurry?  If I took time to nurture the relationships that I have and allow room for new ones?  What would I learn about others and what they need?  Would I find ways that I could fill that need?

I’m always looking for that big way that I could be compassionate.  What program or ministry is calling to me?  Where can I do something big?  Maybe, it starts here by doing something small - by doing less so we can be more to those around us.  By quieting our lives so we can hear God and hear the needs of others.