11-1-09 Series: Principle of the Path #5 – Attention Deficit

This series is based upon the premise that direction determines destination. Direction determines destination. This is something that we know when we drive down a road or when we hike down a path, that what ever direction you take determines where you’re going to end up. We said at the very beginning that even though we understand this principle to be absolute in geography, we said that there is a huge disconnect in every other area of our lives, whether it be dating or marriage, or relationships, or finances or our health, whatever it might be.

 

And somehow we think to ourselves, that if we just pray enough or if we have enough money or if we are really good people, or if we have great hopes and dreams, or if we just trust God enough that we’ll somehow end up where we want to end up, but it doesn’t happen that way. Direction determines destination. It is a principle that we can’t break; we can just break ourselves upon it.

 

Last week we came back and said, “Even if you or I were the wisest person in the world, the smartest person in the world, the most intuitive person in the world, we said that it’s not enough to have lots of information to choose the right path. When it comes to paths that lead us to desired destinations, we don’t just need more information, we need God. We looked at the life of Solomon where late in his life, even though he was the wisest man who ever lived, and wrote more about this principle of the path than anyone else, at one point late in his life, he decided to follow his own will and his own way, his own path – not God’s, and all of his wisdom was to no avail, because he abandoned God in one area of his life and his life came crashing down around him.

 

In every area of our lives we need God, because our perspective is so small and we understand so little, and we don’t want to choose the wrong path early in our life and later find out that the path we chose was a horrible bad choice and our lives ended up in a place that was far from being blessed and good.

 

Here’s the principle, and you either work with is or you break yourself upon it. Direction, not intention, determines destination.

 

Here’s the deal, it will impact your life. It will impact your life, whether you know it or not, whether you embrace it or not, or whether you admit it or not. Here’s the rest of the formula. Direction determines destination, but often times it is the things or the people that get our attention that influence our direction. The things that grab or capture our emotions, are the things that we give our attention to, and these influence the direction of our lives.

 

Now looking back, every one of us knows that this is true, and I’ll give you enough illustrations so that you’ll know it’s true. I love the phrases that we use in the English language. That grabbed my attention or that captured my attention. She captured my attention. Here’s the principle. When something grabs or captures our attention, we are turned in that direction and that something that grabs or captures our attention leads us down a different path in a different direction of your entire life.

 

In 1984 Shannon captured my attention as my eyes drifted across a Freshman English classroom at KVCC. She grabbed my attention and it altered my direction and it altered my focus and ultimately it changed the direction of my life, and there are now people in this world that wouldn’t have been in this world if she had not captured or grabbed my attention.

 

When God grabbed me and showed me this (point to it) vision and this mission, it so captured my attention that it started me down a new path and directed my life in a new direction and my life has never been the same since. God turned me and my focus, and as a result, he changed the direction of my life, and I have never been so blessed in all my life. Is this job hard, Oh Yeah! It’s the hardest job that I’ve ever done, but my life is still full of unbelievable blessing because God captured my attention and led me down a different path.

 

Do you see how that works? I’m just going along and minding my own business and all of a sudden, “Whoa, I’m going that way!” Now, we’ve all had those moments either relationally or with some other defining moment in our lives, when something or someone just grabbed or captured out attention, and here’s the principle, the things that grab or capture your attention, influence the entire direction of your life.

 

Now, those examples are good examples, but the truth of the matter is that some of us have things in our past as we think back, because there were people, or events, or opportunities, or things that grabbed our attention and if we could go back, we wish that we’d just kept going. We wished that we’d glanced and said, “Never mind” and kept going. There are people that you wish you’d never met. There are relationships that you wish you’d never gotten involved with. There are phone numbers that you wish you’d never called. There are business opportunities that you wish you’d ignored.

 

On every path that leads to destruction, on every path that leads to disaster, the reason we choose those paths is because there’s always something very powerful and very emotionally engaging on those paths. That’s why we use that terminology. It grabbed my attention. I didn’t give it any attention and all of a sudden, it grabbed my attention and it turned me in a different direction. It put me on a different path. It captured my attention – like a bird that is suddenly captured in a cage, now my attention is completely captured by this strong emotional pull.

 

Often times those are the things that lead to our greatest regret. Why, because attention influences direction and every direction has a predetermined destination. We have all been influenced by something that has captured our attention or grabbed our attention and later we wished that we had just kept going.

 

Now, not only are there things that capture or grab our attention, but there are also things that we choose to “Pay” attention to or “Give” our attention to. And there’s a big difference between what grabs our attention or captures our attention and what we choose to Pay attention to or Give our attention to, isn’t there?

 

Grabbing our attention is all about emotion. Giving our attention or paying attention is all about a choice that we make; it’s all about a decision that we make. As we look back, there are things that you and I wish that we had paid more attention to. There are things that you and I wish that we’d given more attention to.

 

You may wish now that you had given or paid more attention:

v     to your health.

v     to how you handled your money.

v     to your marriage

v     to what was going on in the lives of your kids

v     to your spiritual life – I hear stories where people say to me, “For these stages of my life I didn’t pay or give any attention to my walk with God.

What happened? Something captured their attention or something grabbed their attention and consequently they didn’t give or pay attention to their faith in God.

 

Think how different your life might be if you had given or paid more attention to certain things in your life? Why is that? It’s because of this principle, because the things that grab my attention or the things that I give my attention to, affects the direction of my life.

 

Let’s take it to another level. Imagine how different your life would be today if your father had paid more attention to certain things? Imagine how different your life would be today if your mother paid more attention to certain things. Imagine how different your life would be if your parents had paid more attention to their marriage? Imagine how different you life would be today if your parents had paid more attention to your life – perhaps during adolescence. Imagine how different your world would be today if your parents had paid more attention spiritually? The direction of their life would have been different and the direction of your life would have been different.

 

Why, because of this principle. The things that get our attention, whether they grab our attention or whether we pay or give attention, these things determine the direction of our lives. Because direction ultimately determines destination.

 

Here’s why this is so important for us today. Looking back, it’s clear how each of our lives have been impacted by the principle of the path. But right now, you have chosen to give and pay attention to some things, and right now, there are some things that have captured and are grabbing your attention. There are some things that have gotten your attention and the first time you glanced in that direction, or talked to those people, or glanced at that proposal, you thought, “Naaaaa”. But they kept calling or she kept walking by and slowly it is beginning to capture your attention. And that path has a direction and that path leads somewhere and it’s not good.

 

But then on the flip side, for some of you, you have been paying attention and giving your attention and have been walking down the path of righteousness for a while now and you’ve seen the blessing and the goodness that comes from walking down that path.

 

Here’s an observation. Maybe your observation is different. After talking with lots of people and after looking deeply at my own life, the things that capture or grab my attention are generally dangerous. The things that I choose or give my attention to are generally better for me and set my life up for success in the future.

 

It can go either way, but whatever has captured your attention right now, in this moment, is impacting the direction of your entire life. Financially, relationally, spiritually, professionally, academically, morally, your health, your friendship, your marriage, whatever it might be.

 

If I close the message here, most of us would say, “Yeah, that’s true. I haven’t heard it in those terms before, but yeah, I can see that.” Attention, direction, direction, destination.

 

Here’s the interesting thing. If there is a god, and if there is a personal God who knows that you exist and that God is willing to interact with you personally, and I know that’s a big step of faith for many, but I’m surely there, And if the God from the Bible has invited us to call him Heavenly Father, which he has, which means that he loves us more than the best parent could ever love their children, then he would have revealed this particular principle for us, so that we could know it and be blessed through it.

 

This is why I say, “Read your Bible” because most, if not all, of the writers of the Old and New Testaments at least allude to this principle. It’s everywhere and it was hard to pick which scripture I was going to share with you today. This is what a big deal this is. Throughout the scriptures, God reminds us again and again and again, the things you pay attention and the things that capture your attention are the things that direct your life and where it’s going.

 

The first one is found in the Book of Deuteronomy. This is so cool. This is written by The people of Israel are just about to go into the promised land, and God is speaking to his people and he gives them the law that told them how to live and then he spoke to them through Moses and he basically said this, “Look, you’re going to be tempted by what’s going on in the surrounding nations. You’re going to be tempted to look at how they do relationships and you’re going to say, ‘hey, let’s do it that way.’ You’re going to be tempted by the lust and sensuality in those neighboring countries and say, “I want some of that.” And God says through Moses, ‘Pay attention to what I am giving to you, because I know you’re going to be distracted.’” Listen to what he says:

 

If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them – there’s the principle of the path right there. If you and I are careful to follow the path – then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers. Deuteronomy 7:12 (NIV)

This is what’s so amazing, it’s because part of God’s deal or arrangement with Israel was that if you will trust me and follow the paths that I have set before you, then I will bless you and the rest of the world will look at you and go “Whoooa who’s their God” But if you don’t trust me and you go down a different path, if you get distracted and you follow something that you shouldn’t, then I’m going to discipline you like a Father disciplines a child, because I don’t want you to go down that path because it leads to destruction.

And if you don’t follow my path, then I’m going to send invading nations in to kick you out – kind of like sending a kid to their room because they did something wrong. Now, what’s really cool is that the Israelites would get really focused and they would trust God and life was good and there were many blessings and then “Whammm!” Something would capture or grab their attention, so they’d get kind of sideways with God and God would remove his blessing from them.

Way back some 3000 years ago, God said to these people, “I am your heavenly Father, and I want there to be a close connection between me and you and I want you to follow me and pay attention. Why? Because where you attention goes, you go. When something has captured your attention, there’s this sense that it’s captured you LIFE and it influences your future.

 Many years later, the second King of Israel, David, references this principle as well. Here’s what he says:

Direct me in the path of your commands – In other words, I want you to be a personal God that directs me in the path of your ways -for there I find delight. Turn my eyes, or turn my attention, away from worthless things. Psalms 119:35-37

Why? Because I move in the direction of my focus. Said in another way, I become what I focus on. If I focus on God, I become more of who he created me to be. I become fuller. If I focus on worthless things, I become, in a sense, empty of who God created me to be. I become empty of God’s blessings. What I focus on influences my life and my future.

All of us can think about things that we got focused on that at the end of the day ended up being worthless, and it wasted a bit of our life. Our life was used up in that area, but we don’t have anything good to show for it. It was a waste of our time.

So David says, “God, I want my eyes to be focused on things that matter. Please don’t let me get fixated on something that is worthless. Why? Because attention influences direction and every direction has a destination.

David continues, Preserve my life according to your word. In other words, I don’t want to end up at a spot in my life where I ask myself, “How in the world did I get here?” Preserve my life according to your word, God, and what he’s really saying is “Help me to focus on you, Lord.” Because we know that the most valuable and worthwhile thing that we can focus on is God. And it’s in God that our life is ultimately preserved in eternal life.  That’s what the greatest command is all about.

Jesus when asked what the greatest command is all about said,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and what he’s saying is focus your eyes on me. Focus your attention on me, because if you go in this direction it will lead you to a great destination. If we focus on loving God with all that we are and loving others as much as we love ourselves – that’s a direction and that leads to a destination, and that destination is heaven on earth.

In this life, heaven is a place inside of you and I. Heaven happens when you and I are filled with love, Joy, and Peace. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a heaven, because the Bible says there is, but heaven primarily is about things being the way they were created to be. Heaven is about life being filled with joy and blessing and peace, and most of all, love. When we focus our attention on God, we are filled with his love and his Spirit and the very essence of heaven. That’s a path and when we focus our attention on God, we are choosing to pay attention to his will and to his paths and they always lead toward heaven.

They may not always be easy paths. Jesus, obviously didn’t have an easy path, because his path lead to the cross, but ultimately it proved to be the right path that has brought blessing and goodness and healing and redemption to so many people. The path was difficult, but Jesus was willing to give up everything to walk down that path, because he knew that his path led in a direction of Goodness. He knew that direction determines destination.