What holds my attention holds me. When we get our attention off the symptoms we are compulsively acting out and learn to focus it on Jesus Christ and his promises of deliverance, our lives will be changed. Focusing our thoughts on Christ instead of on our sins opens the door to our hearts and makes it possible for him to reach inside and remove the compulsions and desires for evil.
Stephen A. Cramer, “Armed With Righteousness”
Time and time again, we hear that we need to look to Christ. And that we need to ALWAYS remember Him. What does this mean exactly?
To me, it doesn't mean that we are constantly thinking of Him and His gospel. Every thought we have is on Him. That is quite literally impossible given the fact that we have other responsibilities, like a spouse, children, career, several chores or to-dos, Church duties outside of the spiritual, and more.
But....we need to hold Him in our attention. That is what this means, to me. For example, when we are yoked with the Lord, we still need to focus on taking one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, watching where we step to avoid obstacles and dangers. We know He's there. We know He's helping us avoid dangers. We know He's lifting and helping, we can feel it. We know He's smiling as we avoid obstacles and saddened when we trip and sometimes lose our balance and fall.
So, to me, thoughts are singular, from the mind. Whereas, attention is multi-faceted, mainly from the heart. But also, from the mind and from the entire body, and also from the space that I occupy. The very existence of my being among everything that exists.
Attention, then, is a common direction that all facets of my person are heading. We can only face one direction at a time. Although we know the final destination of where we are heading as we look up and see, we need to also see where we are stepping. So, our thoughts are sometimes on doing that. That is attention to me.