Change What You Care About

Have you ever thought about what you care about?

Strange question I bet! But hear me out. Of course we all think about the things we care about. But do you stop and think about how much you think about it? Or perhaps question yourself (yes that's a healthy thing!) as to whether caring about it is even healthy for you? What if you never stopped to think about it, and it's been toxic to you all this time?!

Take a moment, stop and think about something you care about. It doesn't have be to big. It doesn't have to be food. It can be anything. I'll use myself as an example. People have said I am a methodical person. I find the most efficient way to do something and I do it that way, over and over exactly the same. It's something I invest a ton of energy into. It's therefore absolutely something I care about.

But here's the thing. It can become toxic to me sometimes. I have spent tens of thousands of seconds moving apps and shortcuts and widgets around on my homescreen. I have tried different launchers. I've tried soo many things. Why? In the pursuit of finding the most efficient, easiest to use, and pleasing to my eyes configuration possible. I am eternally trying to find the perfect configuration of how often I use apps, how quickly I can get to them, and how good the configuration looks on my homescreen... I change the icons, I change the screen layouts, I change the icon sizes, I changed my wallpaper 5 times a week for years...

You might laugh but it's an issue for me. Thankfully my best friend called me out on it. It had become an idol to me honestly. I was more focused on that then The Lord himself each day. And even after she called me out on it I still struggled for a time. But more recently I had the epiphany that it was... not that important to me anymore. It used to be, but it's dwindling now. Now that I am aware of it and thinking about it, now that I am paying attention to it.

It doesn't really matter if it takes me 3 more swipes to get to this app or that. Or if my screen is "clean" looking or a little cluttered. I don't have the most efficient setup now. I haven't changed my wallpaper in months. I have just accepted that it's good enough and it's comfy enough. Now I still tweak it from time to time. But my whole outlook on it is ever changing and it's importance is diminishing. All things are about the Journey, not the destination after all!

I could leave it there... but that's not finish line with this!

You see, I realized something. I was spending all the time on something I cared about... which really wasn't that important to my life in the long run. And all that time I was spending on that... was time I could have spent following the Lord's call, or having coffee with a friend in need, or spending time with my son, or hugging that guy who doesn't want a hug but really needs one, or any other thing from the millions of things I could have been doing.

So much time lost, lost to something I cared about. But I only cared about it until I stopped to think about it... And then I started to care a lot less about it, and I started to care more about the things that really are worth caring about.

It's a great twist, how He got me to focus on Him and other people more. By helping me focus on what I cared about (which weren't the things of God) He helped me care less about them! It's a strange concept, but that's how The Lord works.

God Plays Chess Backwards