This post is written by Leslie Hudson as a companion for Unit 35, Session 5 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 12: From This World to the World to Come (Summer 2024).

As a writer, I spend many hours a day at the computer, attempting to focus on the writing project at hand. From time to time, I’ll find myself distracted by the thought that I need to look up something on the computer: “What’s the temperature outside? Is it going to rain tomorrow? Did she email me back? What time does the grocery store open in the morning?” None of these are pressing, ever, so when I catch myself off-task, I’ll pull up some “You had one job” memes to give me a little laugh and remind me to get back to writing.

Usually, though, I have no problem staying focused. You see, I’m a type-A, oldest child, self-driven, morning person to the core. Because of those elements, I have always found it came naturally to focus obsessively on certain goals in my life. When I was in second grade, I started taking gymnastics and had practice once or twice a week. Of course, that didn’t seem like enough work for a girl who wanted to be in the Olympics (and I most certainly did, thanks to Mary Lou Retton), so I did cartwheels and splits every afternoon in my front yard.

A few years later, after I broke my arm doing a back handspring and realized that my Olympic dreams were dashed, I found that piano was my foremost passion. I began practicing, not just learning the songs assigned to me but also memorizing them. When I got into high school, I would create a calendar of how to memorize ten songs per year, setting deadlines for each page of each song and how long it would take to be ready by the springtime adjudication. I asked my parents to move the piano into my bedroom so that I could practice at night after they had gone to bed.

In college, I would take each class’s syllabus and put all the important dates into my planner: tests, papers, projects, and more. If you would have been in class with me, I may have driven you crazy. Or I may have reminded you to study for that quiz on Tuesday.

As I moved on from being a student and into being a wife, mom, employee, and all the other responsibilities that come with adulthood, I found that my extremely focused mind-set was nowhere near where it was when I was younger. Maybe you’re the same way. It’s hard to be ruthlessly committed to one thing (keeping a clean house, preparing delicious meals, or crafting a creative homeschool lesson plan) when so many things are vying for your attention. I can do one thing well; I can’t do fifty things well.

Which is why, in my mid-40s, I’ve let so many things fall by the wayside. Where in my 20s I set the goal of memorizing 100 scriptures a year, these days I’m content to simply pray through those words. Twenty years ago, I was spending two or more hours a day preparing for Women’s Bible Study every Tuesday; now I’m lingering over a conversation with God, whether that’s for ten minutes or an hour.

What changed? Well, honestly, I finally see that certain things are important and certain things aren’t. I admire my 8-year-old self who devoted her free time to gymnastics. I smile at those old piano calendars and the hours of practice I put in. I’m glad I delved into memorizing the Bible in my young adult years; those passages are still in my heart and my mind today. But I’ve also learned to turn my daily life—my to-do list, my plans, my chores—over to Jesus. I allow Him to interrupt me as He sees fit. I leave gaps of time for daydreaming, taking a walk, and planning so that I have those times of solitude and prayer.

I may be wrong, but I think that Paul and I probably tracked much the same in our lives. I can see him poring over the scrolls until the wee hours of the morning in his 20s, before he met Jesus on that Damascus Road. I see him practicing his Christian theology and his sermon delivery in his 30s and 40s as he sought Jesus in the Old Testament and from the testimonies of the apostles. And at age 55, as he landed in Rome, I bet he realized that some things could fall by the wayside. We still see Paul preaching and compelling people to believe, but we also see him welcoming people into his home. The zealous scholar found a place for hospitality and a slower pace of life.

God gives us passions and focus that change through the years. We can praise Him for that and yield to His leading us differently through different seasons. But like Paul, the underlying focus for all of it is the same: God’s purpose is my purpose. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul wrote, “I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ” (2:2). May God impress this same focus on all of us as we grow and mature in Him.  

Leslie Hudson loves her mornings of silence, coffee, and Jesus—not in that order. She lives with her husband and kids in White Bluff, Tennessee, where they raise blueberries, figs, and bees. She loves to spend her free time reading, writing, journaling, and helping others know and follow Jesus.