“When You said, ‘Seek My face’, my heart said to You, ‘Your face, LORD, I will seek.’” Psalm 27:8

Focus

My husband has a fancy camera and uses it to pursue his hobby of photography. I never understand all the settings and stops and lenses, but he fiddles away until the ideal shot comes into view. I prefer the point-and-shoot method, for which my cell phone is perfect. I actually get some wonderful pictures with it! (Here’s a cell phone photo of a cloud formation during our recent “tornado.”)

While praying this morning, the first words out of my mouth were, “Focus me, Lord.” I did this because I had no sooner closed my eyes, but my inward gaze settled on a conversation with someone. From there it moved to my aching back, and then to my plans for the day. When I pray for focus, it seems like a camera lens that is adjusted on the preferred object, then fine-tune focused. After focusing in prayer, everything else is blurry, and the Lord becomes the center. I may do this several times while praying, for I often really don’t know how to pray “as I ought.”

I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of trying to have a conversation with someone whose eyes continually wander off our face and onto their watch, their phone, or someone walking by. How do we feel? Unimportant. Invisible. As if the other person has much better things to do than converse with us. It hurts.

I can only surmise that when we talk to the creator of the universe—the One who gives us life and breath and everything we need, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful One—He desires our full attention. He wants our thoughts, our minds, our hearts, our loyalties, our bodies—all blood-bought by His Son—to be fully His.

Focus. Let everything else be blurry, and give Him priority. Ask the Spirit to open our eyes to see spiritual things as we pray, and to think thoughts worthy of Him.

“God, speaking to One who is unseen sometimes feels unnatural. Is it real? Are we really talking to Someone? Your Word tells us that we are talking to Someone. You are near, and You are listening. We believe that You hear us. Thank You, Father. Amen.”