I’m sitting in bed with a sore throat and body aches, writing. Writing helps avoid focusing on how crummy I feel. My son just got over a twelve day bout of bronchitis, and then we cut our Thanksgiving holiday in the country short when my husband got a soaring fever, and a lingering cough suddenly got out of control, keeping him up throughout several nights — pneumonia it turns out.
The last few days he’s been lying on the couch, pumped up with steroids to help stimulate his breathing which had become scary shallow. Ultra-cranky about spending his much needed four-day Thanksgiving vacation alternating between sweats and chills, with that hacking, chronic cough, and loss of sleep, he suddenly became like a wild, highly agitated dog with rabies, blurting out some serious, whining, flailing arms and legs and all, a wail buried underneath a tangled knot of frustration. He’d been dreaming about hiking in the Sierra National Forest, excited to show us the big trees — the Sequoias, and relieved to be breaking free from the stale routine of office life for a few days out in the fresh country air.
No go on that one.
After almost 2 weeks playing Florence Nightingale for my son, who turned 18-years old while sick and sweating on the same couch (anyone with a teenager knows how fun that is), only the Holy Spirit could fill me with patience and compassion for my husband facing this temporary, but nasty illness. I whispered, “focus on prayer instead”.
Bless his heart, he listened. Sinking into the couch with mellowed breaths deepening, he turned into the sweetest angel you can ever imagine.
In filmmaking, the term ‘rack focus’ means changing the camera lens’ focus from an image in the foreground, to an image behind it, or vice versa. The idea is focusing our camera lens in a scene where we most want to draw attention. For him, it meant rack focusing from angst to the comfort of prayer, which in film terms, would also mean changing the focus of the story to a more positive outlook.
Consider the idea of making a movie about what we focus on in our lives.
For instance, I know a person who spent much of her adult life focusing on keeping up with the Jones’. She long ago gave up a religious life. Breaking the commandment Do Not Covet spoke volumes about the main plot line of her life. Although her neighbor had a bigger and better house with a swimming pool, day in and day out, obsessed about creating a home like her neighbor’s house, she even decorated her kitchen and dining room with the same wallpaper. She’d spend hours upon hours neglecting her children while shopping for outfits and trying on clothes in front of mirrors, preparing for the neighbor’s weekly Friday night gourmet dinner parties, and spending more hours at the beauty parlor getting her hair done in a style just like her neighbor’s hair. Throughout the day she sipped vodka from the bottle.
If her life was a movie, you can imagine the ending. In real life, it didn’t turn out well. She ended up addicted and on the streets. This mind you was a suburban mother with a nice house.
Although this is a true story with extreme lessons about rack focus, even if we’re focusing on everyday worrisome issues and stressors in our own lives, God is surely blurry in the background.
With God out of focus, the vibrant fruits of the spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, muted, also fade into the background of our days.
I make it a practice in my life to keep the presence of God my focus which always brings peace, harmony within my relationships, and abounding faith. But, without realizing, my focus often shifts. Recently, I found myself worrying about my changing livelihood, with a tinfoil-chewing kind of anxiety sharpening into focus which changed the whole tone of my days. I became depressed, lost patience, and four days seemed blended into one long, gray, lost day, precious moments missed, blurred in the background.
Thankfully, before bed one night I picked up Brennan Manning’s book on the side table by my bed, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, and read:
“Jesus says that if you will let the real God come into your life, then you will experience a huge freedom from anxiety over survival, not of the usual concerns over livelihood that will furrow your brow or weigh you down.”
Ahh! His words allowed for a simple rack focus back into God’s loving embrace, to the peace that surpasses all understanding, to the floating on a cloud like comfort that God brings, even amidst storms, weather shifts, and uncertainty.
It’s in such racking focus in our lives that we return.
Jesus always reminds us to return. The kingdom of God is at hand! Right where we are. In our midst. Within.
When our focus is other than on God, not only do we miss the grace before us, we also project onto 70mm wide screens of our lives, stories filled with dramas of worries, turmoil, relationship troubles, lies, workaholism and lost opportunities. Such stories might not be as extreme and dire as the lives of those portrayed in the movies like Wall Street and Goodfellas, but surely, what’s in focus will dominate the screen of our lives. Don’t we want our movies filled with stories of grace and happy endings?
In seeking first the kingdom of God – everything changes.
“The thought of my pain and my homelessness is bitter poison. I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.” Lamentations 3:19-25
What’s in sharp focus of your life today?
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Amen! What a great post! I needed to read this one last post before I went to bed tonight! I’ve been worrying about a situation with my son non-stop the last few days. I need to take my focus off the problem and put it back on God!
Praying for healing and good health for your family!
Blessings and smiles this Christmas Season,
Lori
Amen! God will never leave or forsake us, and surely brings us reminders to return! So blessed by your comment knowing it spoke to you! May your faith increase with this situation with your son, and I will keep you in my prayers! I surely know as a mother those worries about our children!Bless you!
“Rack focus,” I’ll keep that term in mind in the weeks ahead as so many tempting distractions loom!
I love it Kelly! I’ll be thinking of you, and joining you!
Love this post! Such a great analogy with the camera focus…it is amazing how just reminding ourselves out loud to, “focus on prayer instead,” can fill our hearts with a new awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to take authority over our emotions and our flesh…then we experience His peace…what a wonderful exchange…many blessings to you, praying for family feels much better very soon 🙂
Thank you for your visit Beth and encouragement! It truly is amazing how our entire outlook–and life–and change when we “focus on prayer instead”! Many blessings as we continue to remind one another where we most belong!
Healing prayers for you and your family, Kathy! Nothing like some forced down-time to refocus our priorities. Your post is spot-on!
thank you June, so much appreciate your prayers and words of encouragement!
Thank you for sharing such sunshine. God’s unfailing love for us is why
I trust in his ever presence, but I do forget the importance of what I am thinking/ doing.
I now have this lovely term to remind me “rack focus”, it will remind me to demonstrate unfailing love and mercy and patience …(my personal challenge of the moment – ah, rack focus!)
Xo susan
Susan, so glad to have you visit! Wouldn’t you think we’d want always to focus on God’s unfailing love, but the human condition
requires constant returning, practice, remembering..rack focusing!! May you be blessed with unfailing love, mercy and patience..how
we all need this!! Have a blessed day!
It impressed me that despite the unwelcome illness of your son and husband, the whisper of praying brought relief and rest. I feel our focus on the Lord makes all the difference no matter what our circumstances. My word for 2015 is FOCUS and this article made me realize how valuable the use of this word can bring about inward change. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and how you are finding “cloud-like comfort that God brings even amid storms, weather shifts and uncertainty.”
Thank you for visiting, Kathy. How perfect that your yearly word is FOCUS! Yes, focus on God makes all the difference, and how blessed we are to be able to continue to return again and again when we loose focus! I love the idea of you focusing on the word FOCUS as a tool for inward change. May you be blessed with the comfort only God brings!
I’m so glad you solved the linking problems, and I was able to read this post! I really like the idea of our lives as a movie. What would the theme of my story be? Would I be the protagonist? Would the audience root for me to “win” in the end? What would the focus be? Thanks for sharing that phrase “rack focus.” I will try to remember to apply that when my focus leaves God.
Thanks for your patience Constance with the link issues! So much appreciate! I love the questions you pose about if your life was a movie! Such good questions to consider! I’ll be thinking about that for myself. Surely, we’d love to be doing the work of Christ! So enjoyed your comment!
sorry your vacation didn’t go as planned,I hope everyone is well now. This post is true, I have done your ‘rack focus’ and it works like clockwork..What a God we serve!
You blessed me Tanya knowing the post helped you return!!
Oh my gosh Tanya, you are reminding me to follow up with you on the Liebster Award! How thankful I am you nominated me..now that I feel a bit better, I’ll be following up answering your questions and nominating five talented writers!
Oh Kathy…
I know to expect a profound lesson from your stories and your wisdom and His Truth every time I come read your posts. This is no exception! Thank you for this. I will be shifting my lens regularly as your powerful words linger in my heart and on my mind.
I hope you are feeling better and your son and husband are doing better too!! Sickness does this more than anything to me- and I’m guessing to many. It can suck the spirit right out of us. BUT, if we let it… it can soak deep within us as we wrestle with our physical pain. I just love that your husband shifted to beautifully because of that very thing. Bless your faithful heart for leading him where he needed to go… <3
Oh, my soul friend Chris, Thank you! So glad this spoke to you, and I have to practice noticing where my focus is every day! You are so right,and thank you so much for the reminder about how being sick can suck the spirit right out of us! It’s just taking such a long time for my husband to get well, and I”m just now starting to feel a bit better–and with it is a sense of a dull spirit! So you’re reminding me–rack focus ..put it all in God’s hands!
This is a great perspective!!! Hope everyone is feeling better now!
thank you Branson! Slowly on the mend!