The Required Level of Focus

As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” He said to another person, “Come, follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.”

—Luke 9:57-62 NLT

If I were to be honest, I spent most of my life feeling a little bit afraid of our reference verses today. The words “Let the dead bury their own dead,” in particular, have always made it to my personal list of top ten most savage things I ever heard that Jesus said. I never really understood what these words could even mean, neither did I understand why Jesus would seem so callous or insensitive towards this man’s connection to his deceased father. Fortunately, that all quickly changed for me during a random conversation I had some time last week. During that conversation I found myself quoting these same words to someone I mentor.

Sometimes, it seems as though, the longer you live life, the more life opens your eyes to paint a picture that explains why certain common principles are relevant. So, last week, a person was explaining to me how they kept getting sucked into a vortex of chaos. They wanted to help out with the chaos in a way, but they knew that, if they did, no one would listen to them anyway and they would probably end up getting sucked into the chaos themselves. I Immediately responded to them, “No, no, no. You don’t get involved with that. Remember the Bible says: Let the dead bury their own dead. You know you have work to do!” Of course, I did not say that to insinuate that people should not care about other people or other things. What I meant was, during the rare occasions that life affords people opportunities to step into greater realms of their destiny, there comes a time when one must decide what they are going to focus on: the past or the now.

To partially soften the blow (I guess), I explained to the person that life is made up of levels and each level has different rules. People often tend to envy those on “higher” levels, but also fail to understand why Jesus would even say such a thing like, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” You see, each new level has its own set of problems. We each have to handle a proportionate level of problems that are challenging to us, according to what we can handle. As crass as it may seem—if we try focusing on the problems from where we have been while also trying to focus on the problems from where we are going, either the past place or our destinies will be thwarted.

A Litmus Test I personally use to measure my commitment to my own goals is that if an excuse is not good enough to explain to a child why there is no food on the table for them to eat, then the excuse also is not good enough for anything or anyone else I am passionate about. In conversations like the one I had last week, I often mention this concept I try to live by about treating goals like children—neither excuses nor “reasons” can take care of the well-being of a child. This kind of conviction has great potential to propel us towards getting more major things accomplished in our lives. Remember the importance of staying focused on where you are going more than you focus on where you are coming from. Unfortunately, time waits on no one and your future is waiting on only you.


Lots of Love, XO