Do you, like me, suffer from cultural attention deficit disorder? I don’t mean like ADD which is normally diagnosed in grade school. I mean like modern, American materialism. And first world problems. And the constant need to be entertained, or maybe even be entertaining. I know that during those long, busy seasons of my life I find that for awhile I really enjoy the constant busyness and look forward to the next day. But then inevitably I hit a wall, and I lose steam. But there are just so many signs in our culture telling me where to go, what I should do, and how I should live. It’s hard to wade through these to hear and see and follow God’s word.

Jesus discussed this, I believe, in Matthew 6.

“”Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:19-24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This is a tough passage. He hits a lot of items on the list. But I think we can agree that keeping up with the Joneses is a part of it. He then also mentions the eye. The eye is the window to the soul. What you let in affects your thoughts, emotions and will. So if you allow dark things to enter your eyes: pornography, lust, covetousness, jealousy, anger, malice, bigotry, racism, violence, materialism and greed…these will affect you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will seep into your life. And because of our fallen nature, we have little ability in our own to control our thoughts. We allow what we see, hear and feel to control our emotions, which affects our will, and once our will has been compromised we slide easily into lack of control of our decisions.

I stand looking in the mirror alongside you as I say this, maybe we shouldn’t be so distracted by the things of this world vying for our attention, but rather we ought to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. And as we allow our focus, our gaze to remain transfixed on Him, we will begin to be affected by what we see. And we will see more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control evident in our lives!