OneWord 2015: Dwell

I can't focus like I used to. My attention span seems to have grown shorter as I've gotten older. My husband complains that it's hard to watch a movie with me. I doze off, or I get up to put a load of laundry in, or I try to multitask and lose track of the storyline, missing important details because my mind is somewhere else. My train of thought is running in so many different directions that it's hard to focus one thing at a time.

Missing out on a movie can be annoying, but other things can't be missed. There are some things that need more than our fleeting attention. Faith. Family. The truly important things in life.

Life is fleeting. We never know when it will slip through our fingers, the time and the chances for all we planned and hoped and dreamed of, gone forever. In the past few years, I've lost some high school classmates, all in their 30's, all with young families left behind to grieve. People who although I'd lost touch with, I'd known since childhood. Suddenly gone. It changes your perspective.

Life is too sacred to rush through.

I want to dwell. I want to be settled, to reside with my family. I want to keep my attention directed toward them, not getting sidetracked by things that don't really matter. I want to watch movies with my boys as we pass around big bowls of popcorn. I want to play Monopoly around the kitchen table. I want to bake cookies and make dinner and hand down family recipes. I want to read together, laugh more, explore and discover together. I want to be present, not just in body, but in heart and mind. Life requires focus, living in the here and now, really being present in every moment. To live any other way is to miss it.

I want to dwell with God, to really know Him. I don't want God to be just something I check off my to-do list. The only way to fully live is to live in Him, and that requires time. Like Mary, I want to sit at His feet and soak in His presence. There are so many things I want to change about myself, so much I want to refine, and the only way to do that is to live fully and completely in Christ.

I've been memorizing Psalm 27 with Do Not Depart, and I love this verse: 

Psalm 27:4

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord

And to meditate in His temple.

That sums it up. "That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life..." Because nothing else really matters. When my life comes to an end, my faith and my family are the only things that will matter. They are the two things that should have my greatest attention. This year, I want to dwell on the things that matter most.