Life Hack #18 - Get the Focus Right

Life Hack #18:

Dear child, I want your full attention; please do what I show you. A whore is a bottomless pit; a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast. She’ll take you for all you’ve got; she’s worse than a pack of thieves. (Proverbs 23:26-28)

Marriage - what was designed to be the pledge of one life to another for the entirety of their lifetimes is under attack in society today. We even have issues with figuring out how to define marriage anymore - with everyone trying to "redefine" it to fit their desire. Who believes they will deal with adultery when they enter into marriage, any more than they think they will have to deal with the issues of prostitution or pornography. Yet, today's culture puts the sanctity of this union we refer to as "marriage" to the test with all kinds of issues, doesn't it? What many don't realize is the damage done when they give their hearts (and bodies) to someone outside of the sanctity of marriage - whether it is through prostitution, pornography, adultery, or fornication. It damages the beauty of what God designed within the boundaries of marriage.

This is a call to attention - our "full attention". This is the revelation of a father's heart here - wanting us to realize the gravity of what he is about to share with us. We are asked to listen, but also to heed what is given as a warning. This lesson must be pretty important because he calls us to attention - gets our focus again, as though we may have drifted a little in our attentiveness toward laying all the foundation stones in place one-by-one. Why is there this sense of urgency on his part for us to hear and obey? I believe it is because he has recognized the destructive pull of anything which takes us away from "dead center" and grabs the strings of our hearts, entangling them in its grasp.

We hear the undertones of a concerned father warning against the misdirection of heart which carries a good many into adulterous paths. In the most literal sense, this is the violation of the "marriage bed" - the giving of oneself sexually to anyone other than your spouse. The issue at hand is that of giving one's heart to anyone to whom it does not belong. Our heart belongs to God FIRST. We can actually "whore" our hearts to many a thing or person, can't we? Any time we put another (even ourselves) in the position God deserves, we are "whoring" ourselves to another. We are violating the relationship God wants to have with his people. There is something which entraps us and makes it difficult to get out. Anything or anyone that takes the attention of our heart, grabbing hold of its affections and attention is a dangerous thing. We are called to be alert to avoid it at all cost. 

We are called to keep our hearts pure and in love with the one who gives us the very breath we rely upon for life itself - God. In turn, we avoid the many pitfalls which await us if we don't. The issue at hand is that of focus - for what we focus on the most gets the priority of our attention. To have any other focus than him will introduce many an unwanted issue into our lives, just as much as having any other focus in our married lives other than our spouse would create a similar type of havoc. The call is to pay attention - to get our focus right. We don't get lured by the adulterous or whore when our focus is on the One we love the most! Just sayin!