I think Mr. Miyagi had it right.
“Focus Daniel-san!”
There is power in Focus
When I add water to tea, it becomes diluted, and has less taste. When you poke a hole in a balloon, the thing flies around the room and loses all of its balloon-ee-ness. (That’s a word in my world.)
When you add outside influences to your marriage, you take away the power of focus…the focus that we are supposed to have for our spouse. The focus that remembers and lives out the covenant we made with each other before God – you know – the marriage vow thing?
You Can Lose Focus Several Ways
The title of this post might be about “porn”, but this could relate to anything we put between us. (As Gerald May says – we are all addicts).
We lose focus on our marriages when we put more focus on things like Work. Kids. Errands. Friends. Hobbies. Porn. Money. Games. Food. Busyness.
It’s like they creep between us slowly. It starts small. You don’t notice that you are drifting away from your spouse.
When Elisha burned his carts and barbecued his cows, he was limiting his choices. He became very focused. He couldn’t do the ‘farmer thing’ any more. He had to follow Elijah and become a prophet. All of a sudden, his choices were limited.
In our day and age, we have so many things that grasp for our attention. Its easy to be distracted, and carried away by all sorts of things. I have heard it said recently that Satan loves that. When we eject from real life and jump into imaginary worlds, we tend to lose focus on the real life that we have. Sometimes those decisions to eject from the present can have serious consequences.
How is your focus lately?
This is a post in an ongoing series about Porn and Marriage.
photo by dimitridf
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree that we can be addicted to just about anything. But when I read your your list of things one can be addicted to (Work. Kids. Errands. Friends. Hobbies. Porn. Money. Games. Food. Busyness.), I hear that Sesame Street song, “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” All the others are things that are good unless they become the center of one’s life. Porn has never been and never will be good. It can’t be allowed into one’s life in any measure.
Hey Lisa – Thanks for the comment. Porn is one distortion of Sex – which is also good…perhaps my list should have said sex instead of porn!
Stu,
You are right on with your observation. The issue of focus is particularly important in the information age. What we focus on is given power in our lives. We also become more like what we focus on. When the focus is on porn, we increase our desire for sensuality and stimulation, rather than love our spouses or people for who they are. Focusing on porn changes our responsiveness to others. Whatever we focus on changes us.
One thinker commented that “attention (focus) is the most valuable commodity of the 21st century”. He was right. There are many things competing for our focus and attention. Sadly many people are content with being distracted by bright, shiny objects and never learn how to avoid distraction and use their focus in a good way.
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