What’s It All About?

As I penned the title to this blog, a song of old popped into my mind, “What’s it all about, Alfie?” I stopped to look up the lyrics because I can only remember this single phrase. I have no clue as to who wrote it, who put the music to the lyrics, or even who sang the song. In my mind, I do not remember even if it is a male or female…

The only thing that remains is the phrase – “what’s it all about…”.

A few years ago I had this thought when I considered all the distractions people dally around with.

These past few weeks it seems the emphasis of so many are about the highs and lows of things happening around us.

Many folks jump on the bandwagon of excitement about this “LeBron” thing, others focus on the zoo and talk about “tiger”, while others are paying huge attention to soccer happening in another country – on another continent – below the equator…

Some cannot get enough of twilight – we just drove through Forks and I did not see any werewolves or vampires or even actors. Some are upset that their TV show has been canceled. Some are bemoaning the latest reality show as if it’s a real representation of life. While others think that it’s rigged for judges to promote one talent over the other. And then there’s all this talk about tar balls washing up on the coastline in the Gulf of Mexico.

From financial meltdowns to the mortgage crisis, to lost jobs, time nor space is available for me to document all the things that people decide to spend their energy and focus upon.

I grow weary with the focus on this world and all the distractions we are faced with. Somewhere I need to revamp my thinking and look to the Good News found in the pages of the Bible.

There is Hope for a better life and it is not found with a basketball in my hand.
There is Joy in living for Christ and it is not found flipping channels.
There is Peace in putting Christ first in my life, even when this world is full of disasters.
There is Love in responding to the Love that came to me on a dark and lonely road.

So, I ask this question, “What’s it all about?” Do you really know? Do you really care?

One writer put it like this, and I know there are many who think the same thing.

Perhaps we need to shore up our defenses against those daily distractions. If you struggle with the entertainment debacle or the news focus, then simply build your “wall” to keep those things at bay. When the writers of old struggled with the rapid change or deterioration, I simply realize that we are no different today than they were back then. We may know more, see more, experience more, but life is full of distractions and worry as much as it was back in the good ol’ days.

We must keep our focus on the things that make the most sense!

What I notice especially? The list above is not as important as the distractions we’ve replaced them with today. Tomorrow will be different. The next election cycle will change all of it. New technology will bounce us around.

Here’s my thought today. The Apostle Paul described a time for Christians nearly 2,000 years ago. It’s still true today.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—  (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NKJV)

I’m sure if you went back even further you would find plenty of written words that would describe their time period the same way… Really. It is in how you look at it. That’s Perception. It’s how you think about it. I call it Thimk. Then it is building a template or pattern by which to live no matter what happens around you. I call this Algorithm. I’ve written about all of these quite a bit over the past years.

Why don’t you tell me what’s it all about? Let’s compare notes!