My Full Attention

I have had a video sitting in my “watch later” list. Yesterday, I decided it was as good a time as any. The man speaking was in Sweden, and he was commenting on the changes in people globally in the past few decades. I have been feeling the same thing myself and I wanted someone else's take on it. He especially caught my attention when he said one phrase: giving someone "my full attention," because that was the title of the song I was working on a blog for.

I wrote “My Full Attention” December of 2016, three years into my stroke recovery process. My biggest fear as I learned to speak again, is that I would never again be able to write something that started and completed a thought in a cohesive way. I wondered if I would be able to remember words again at all, let alone rhyme them and get them to match a melody. This song was my first full-song writing attempt since my brain explosion. Could I still do it? It was still a struggle for me. I did complete the lyric and melody one day that December. I copyrighted it, and it sat for the next 10 years. As I was working on other things to put on my blog, I felt an urgency for this one to jump the line and get posted asap.

Back to the Swedish guy's video. The topic dealt with the same idea as my song does: Giving our full attention to the life in front of us (especially in listening to God) versus our partial attention. The phone beeps, and a conservation with a person in the same room is immediately put on hold to find who just texted us. Maybe that text is more important than the one I was currently engaged in. While Kim and I both love ourselves a good TikTok doom scroll, I think those types of things have accustomed us to getting our information in 30 seconds or less, or we lose interest. Jesus warned us a lot in Scripture to stay sober and vigilant, alert and ready, focused, and to take every thought captive. “How can I do this? My life is so crazy!” so many people argue. God always opens a door that enables obedience. Ask. Seek. Knock. Find it.

Nothing gives a person the ability to give God full attention than being unable to talk or move, write or … anything. God taught me in a deeper way to be able to sit quietly, focus, and just wait for Him to speak. I would like this to be a challenge to all of us in these weird times. Be present. Give your full attention to what is in front of you, especially when it comes to taking time to hear the voice of God.

To listen to this song, click below: