Philling Up On Philippians: Paul’s Singular Focus

Since starting the Solitude Challenge, I’ve been spending that time every day with Paul in his letter to the Philippians. It’s been good. I’m taking just a bit of it at a time and slowly working my way through. It’s been good.

Yesterday, I was on Philippians 1:15-18. I’ve read that passage many times over the years. But yesterday something from it struck me in a new way. It’s not just that he doesn’t care that people are proclaiming Christ to somehow make things worse for him. That’s huge but not new to me. What I thought about yesterday was Paul’s singular focus on the one most important thing in all life – proclaiming Christ. To him, even if people’s motives were all wrong, but they were proclaiming Christ, that was okay. The proclamation of Christ was Paul’s chief end in life. If it made things worse for him, so be it. He could rejoice in that. Crazy.

It’s super convicting to me to think about Paul’s focus. Mine is so all over the place. Part of that comes with being a husband and father of three little ones. Part of it comes with the society we live in – all the hustle and bustle that we’ve decided is “normal.” But the biggest part of it – is that I just don’t care enough. I live in my own little world and don’t really care nearly enough about my neighbors, the people I serve, or even my own family. My serial selfishness makes it impossible to focus on the one thing that will change everything for everyone, including myself. It’s a huge problem.

So, what to do about it? I’m open to suggestions. My current thought is to find some way to keep the words “proclaim Christ” in my visual field as much as possible for a while. Not sure how to do that. I’m a visual person though (isn’t everyone?) and it helps me to actually see the words. I’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, what helps you keep your focus on proclaiming Christ in all things?