Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday - Part 2

 This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally some form of artistic mark to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life: an antidote to chaos. Great Britain: Penguin Random House, 2018. Rule 4: Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday, Not to Who Someone Else Is Today, pp. 96-104

Opening Thought: Peterson makes a very interesting point in today’s selection of reading. He talks about the limited scope we have in our vision. “Vision” here is both referencing the things we see with our eyes, but all our wider scoop of understanding and the process of engaging with and taking in information and stimulus. Peterson references some studies, which have a bit of a surprising and humorous context to them, where people are instructed to watch one thing in a video, and within what they are watching something strange appears on the screen, not within the main focal point of the shot, but also not obstructed or obscure, i.e., a man in a gorilla suit walking out in the middle of sports drills, the subjects watching the videos totally missed the strange occurrence happening. These studies were replicated in different forms and the results were similar. It tells us that the human mind filters out most stimuli that aren’t its current focus. As long as the new stimulus doesn’t violate the scope of what you're focusing on, i.e. the gorilla suddenly stole the ball from the players, the ape would likely go unseen by many unless pointed out. We must be able to filter information and stimulus, otherwise, our minds would be running on overdrive. I am someone with A.D.D. and I struggle with limiting the stimulus which triggers my mind’s attention, so I have the inside knowledge of what it would feel like for people if our brains did not filter. If your mind did not limit your thoughts and visions, we would be forever lost in the infinite varieties of concept and experiences of reality. We would never find time to cultivate anything, growth would be non-achievable goal. Luckily God has seen it wise to help us in our mind, give a lens of vision, we can choose, for the most part, to focus on one thing or another, setting other thoughts and feelings and giving priority to one or two at a time.

Opening Prayer: God, help us to see clearly. Help us to open our eyes to Your vision, Your truth, and the road You call us down. In Christ’s name, Amen.   

Scripture Brought to Mind: Matt 6:24

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Reflection: This scripture piece is one I often return to, because it speaks clearly to the struggle in humanity. Humans do not have infinite minds, we a limited to what we can be dedicated to at any given moment, we can not serve two masters. It is like our vision; we can only focus upon so much before things go unnoticed. Sometimes that's good, as long as those things are benign. But if the thing unnoticed is important, then your focus can be detrimental. If in your life you have be heavily focused on the material, you could be completely surrounded by the spiritual, but you would likely not notice it. Also, as Peterson notes, we can often think we want one thing, or believe what we are in pursuit of will grant us happiness, but the reality is that our focus has become narrowed on the one thing that could be making us miserable, and we have blinded ourselves from alternative.

In the theological sense, we can often do that same thing, we can be so focused on a material portion of existence, or what we wish God to be, to a point that we blind ourselves from the truth. This is where false idols often gain their power over us, we give our power away to the false idol as we become too heavily focused on what the false idol promises. It takes a strong will to overcome this, once we have surrendered our vision to a false idol. Luckily, we have Christ, who comes to help us. 

I have found in my life, people who are both successful in material senses but also in their spiritual pursuits are often strategic people. They look at things, like their vision, as a tool for a grander purpose. God gave you eyes to see, to see Him. Or God can you a curiosity so you could ask questions about Him. They focus their life on Christ and take on a strategy that is always pointed towards Christ as goal and King. When possible false idols appear in the road for spiritually strategic people, they will ask, “does this serve me on my pursuit of God’s will?” or the more classic “what would Jesus do”. The spiritually strategic person will know God will make many roads for you to get to Him, they need to make sure their vision remains on God, so that what they encounter on the roads doesn’t become the focal point of their life. This serves them in the material sense too, if you’re goal is to have a comfortable home for your family, then when opportunities in life present themselves that do not lend to that goal, you will pass them up. The most strategic people will take time to discern each thing and experience, and revisit their options to ensure the best roads for their family goals are taken, even if the road they are already on seems pretty good.

Continual Work: Often people move towards what they think about most, if you spend most of your day thinking about getting home and watching the game, you will likely spend most of your life watching the game at home, in a manner of speaking. So, ask yourself what you spend most of your time thinking about and longing for. Do these goals truly make you happy, or could they be blind you from a greater potential?

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I’m find lately, my rest has become very lacking, as I am writing this, it is pre-Christmas, and that is a busy time of year for clergy. Plus, with a few unique things this year, including a pregnant wife. My energy is running low, so not much else but sleep has been my longing focus.

Prayer for your week: Lord, be with us. Amen.  

Artistic Close: There is a meme series on social media that plays to this limited focus issue. Hope you have fun with this