Where's your focus?

Sue and I recently enjoyed a lovely break in beautiful Scotland.  The weather proved to be better than forecast, which meant that we were able to get out and about and explore the amazing Scottish scenery.  On several occasions we stopped the car and stepped out to enjoy the stunning views.  I had my camera at the ready, and managed to shoot quite a few images, though I feel that a camera image can rarely, if ever, capture the full impact of the ‘live’ view.

In one of the places we stopped, there was a proliferation of a bright yellow flower (no idea of the name of the plant, the gardeners among you might recognise the flower from the images).  As I drew close to one of the plants, I noticed that a bee had settled on a flower.  I decided to try and take a photo of the bee.  I have an ordinary compact camera, with an auto-focus facility.  I used the zoom lens to try and get a good image, and took a two or three shots.  One of the problems I faced was that the wind was gently moving the branches of the plant, so I wasn’t sure how effectively the auto-focus would work.

In the old days, of course, I would have had to wait a week or two for the film to be sent off and developed.  With the advent of digital cameras, the results can be viewed almost instantly.  I later downloaded the images onto my laptop. When I viewed the images I was interested to see how the auto-focus had operated.  One image had the bee very out of focus, another had the bee in much better focus.  As I compared the two images, I noticed that the image with the bee out of focus nevertheless had the flowers in the background in almost perfect focus; on the other hand, the image which brought the bee into much clearer focus left the background flowers out of focus.

 

It got me to thinking about the things people focus on in life.  For example, when two people have a falling out, it may be because they have focussed on a relatively minor issue about which they disagree, and taken their focus off the wider picture.  I am taking a Thanksgiving Service later today of a lovely old lady who died recently.  In the past few years she has had her fair share of troubles, from a burglary and a major water leak at her home, to issues around her deteriorating health.  Yet she was able to say to me before she died, “I’ve had a wonderful life”.  Her focus was on the big picture, and the blessings of her life.  When troubles come into our life, where is our focus?  I spoke to someone yesterday who had recently been told that they have cancer.  In situations like that, where would our focus be?  I was reminded recently of the quote, “Don’t tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is!”  It’s all about focus.