Attention: Conveying appropriate interest, concern, and care; taking notice of others and making an effort to enter into their respective worlds. (1 Corinthians 12:25 NASB)
You remember those Top Ten Relational Needs ( Top Ten Relational Needs ) we reference almost every week in our 52 Week Plan? Well, those ten little words are big factors in whether we pay positive attention and show love and kindness or do the opposite. To keep it simple, let’s use the definition for attention as “entering another person’s world by showing appropriate interest / making an investment of time”.
When others speak words of life to encourage us and take the time to enter our world via good listening habits or acts of kindness, we feel known and cared for. We feel important because to them, apparently, we are important.
Sadly, for too many of us there are more people who don’t speak life; people who take rather than give life. These are people who make us feel about as wanted as old, moldy bread. How about if you and I become great at entering the world of others and paying attention to each life – one life at a time.
Jesus – The Light of the World: (Jesus Meets Our Need For Attention)
Jesus paid attention and entered the world of the people He encountered. Whether it was taking time to listen, to touch, to help, or to give words of hope, Jesus paid attention and spoke life to so many. When we pray, worship, read Scripture, or simply listen for God’s voice, we discover that God longs to meet with us, speak to us, enter our world at the deepest levels. So God was not just at work paying attention in the first century, He gives us Holy Spirit to live in us and always be with us. He speaks life to us by His Spirit and certainly enters our personal world.
His Word – A lamp and a Light
Let’s Do the Book and actually experience the scripture found in I Corinthians 12:25. Let’s “have the same concern” for one another.
- Do you pay more attention to people at work than you do to your spouse or family?
- Do you take time to listen and enter the world of others – seeking to understand those outside your home – more than those inside your family?
- Ask God to help you to make eye contact as you listen to your spouse, child, parent, sibling or others in your family to help them feel known, important, and loved. Will you invest your life into theirs and pay attention?
You And I Are “The Light of the World” – Jesus Said So.
If you don’t already do this, please begin this very night having a time (even a brief time) with your spouse and your children (if single, have a phone call with a friend) to spend time asking about what they want you to pray for in their life. Listen well. Write it down. Then pray with them. You will have entered their world in this simple way and together acknowledged your desire for God’s will and power to be experienced in your lives.
Dave Lewis