Sometimes I push my thumb into an orange just for the scent of it, and it takes me there; the peace, the spaciousness of an unhurried afternoon, the quality of attention to small things.~Katherine May (From Enchantment, Awakening Wonder In An Anxious Age)

I am often distracted. My focus spins out of control. I get enamored with brightly lit concepts and ideas that steer me off course. Instagram images, video games, movies with too many episodes that I am tempted to spend hours and hours watching all at one time.  Scrolling on linked in. There are so many authors promoting books. There must be thousands. There are actually tens of thousands. It is easy to compare myself with others who appear to have much more success. I am squinting into the brightness. I do not pick up my pen in the blinding glare.

One of my sisters taught me the phrase, "pick up my pen." She says, "I decided to 'pick up my pen' and write a book." She writes two pages every day. She is building something. My other sister just graduated from seminary. She is packing up with her husband and moving to Washington state to begin a ministry there. She is building something, too. Step by step. My sisters manage distraction well.

It can be easy to know what we want to build, to sense a divine whisper to begin using the tools He's gifted us with. It is another thing to resist giving up. Last week, I learned of an author who's written several literary novels, yet this talented individual hasn't written another book in ten years. Then I listened to an NPR story about an African man who was wrongly imprisoned for a year and wrote a novel with a pencil on scraps of toilet paper.  Two poles. Do these opposite reactions on the parts of these persons have to do with circumstances? Was one able to write because he had no distractions, and the other because he had too many? 

I ponder this question. I think, for me, it is not only about becoming ensnared by distractions, but also remembering that to build something--a business, a book, a marriage, a savings account, an education--takes giving attention to small things, to minute steps. One by one. Increments. Taking things in small measure can defeat the mindset that something is too hard or overly complex. 

Life is life. We all experience the clutter and the glamour. And most of us feel the pull, that voice, that invitation from God that we are meant for something good, something purposeful. To build something.

I asked God to give me a Scripture for the hard times, when I lose focus. When I've laid my pen down. He gave me Psalm 20:4. And then the next day I was at a department store and found a necklace.  A cross. On the box Psalm 20:4 was written in script. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. I wear the necklace now as I type.