Pink Elephants!?

When I was new in AA, I can distinctly remember being told about the importance of focus.

"Whatever you choose to focus on will grow," the wise old-timers use to say, "so choose wisely!", they concluded.

I can also remember another little anecdote that I heard at a discussion table about 25 years ago, as a particular elder statesman introduced an interesting experiment, and illustration to help us newer members understand the importance of what we choose to focus on more clearly.

"Don't think about pink elephants!" he said. First off, we were all of course very surprised at the utterance of this strange phrase, and it evoked an even stranger mental picture. But, that was, as you'll see in just a moment, all part of his plan.

"Now what did you think about?," he asked next.

"Uhhhhh, pink elephants?" we answered in bewilderment, and practically in unison.

"Exactly!" he said. You see that's why in the spiritual life, it is completely ineffective for us to focus on what NOT to do as our solution. We need to instead focus on what TO do in order to move forward with our recovery!

If all we focus on is ""DON'T DRINK!,"" then ironically, drinking is all we'll think about. But if instead we focus on Prayer and meditation, trusting and relying upon God, taking inventory, and helping others etc, then miraculously, we've been freed from the obsession to drink, or the obsession with trying not to on our own power!"

Ah, at last, what began as what seemed to be an obscure exercise, finally became clear, and it made perfect sense!

If you're not an alcoholic, drug addict, or in any other form of 12 step recovery, fear not! These principles are spiritual in nature, and their genesis or origins can be found in the pages of scripture, and whose practice and effectiveness are universally applicable to ALL human beings. So if you're a human being, this is for you too!

Have you ever noticed how Jesus didn't just focus on what not to do like a "Negative Nancy," and as was customary for most of the prideful and destructive pharisees of His day, but he chose instead to focus on the positive commands imperatives given to Him by His heavenly Father?

The most memorable of these instances for me can be found in Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 37,

34 "But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’[e] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[f] 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

As we can clearly see from the above passage, Jesus openly declared that loving The Lord our God will all of our hearts, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, will cover and fulfill the entire law and all of the demands of the prophets!

As imperfect and limited human beings, we are prone to focus on what not to do, and if we're not careful we can become fearfully and pridefully obsessed with these rules and regulations. It is our fleshly nature's unconscious perpensity to want to try and establish ourselves on our own performance and ability alone, and on what we perceive to be the merits of our own self righteousness.

We shouldn't be surprised however, when this approach fails utterly, and when after judging others too harshly, we alienate them from us, and then we ironically and inevitably fall ourselves, as we are then left guilty, fearful and alone once more.

This is because we have NOT BEEN DESIGNED to earn our own righteousness based on our own performance alone!

As Jesus tells us, we are designed to love and focus on God and others, and then paradoxically we open ourselves up to the love, life, grace and power of the life of Christ within us, who animates us and achieves within us the results that our souls have always craved, but have never been able to achieve on their own.

Let's take a look at Galatians 2:20-21 as we punctuate our thoughts here today,

20"My old self has been crucified with Christ.[a] It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."

Powerful words indeed! And for our purposes, ones who are more than worth our time in prayer, and meditation.

As we close, let's observe the contents of one more passage of scripture, which can be found Phillipians 4:8,

8 "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise"

There you have it!

And so, I leave you with this one question: What are you focusing on today?

As we see in the above passage, the Bible is very helpful in giving us God's blueprint and actually telling us what we should focus on!

In a world where selfishness, self-centeredness, narcissism, cynicism, negativity, cruelty, and crude behavior have become THE NORM, choose life and peace today!

Summon the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the very life of Christ that lives inside you, and meditate on these words of scripture today and watch how God will Bless you with an abundant harvest of peace in your heart, and the overflow of that internal blessing will magnetically draw others in and cause them to want to know the God you love and serve!

God's richest Blessings,

Yours in Christ,

- NDV