I was scrolling through my phone recently when I noticed something. My feed had filled up with videos of people running from animals. Dogs, bears, cats, you name it. I never searched for it. It just showed up, the way things do once the algorithm decides it knows you.

I watched a handful of these clips, mostly people sprinting away from bears, and I made a note to myself afterward. Not a single person in any of those videos was doomscrolling while they ran. Not a single one had their phone out, checking notifications, half paying attention. Every one of them was locked in on one thing: getting away from the bear.

Why? Because focus follows priority. When something truly matters, distraction disappears on its own.

That's the problem for most of us. Not that we lack discipline. That we've lost our one thing.

The One Thing Most of Us Have Lost

Paul writes about this in Philippians 3. He says, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus made me his own." Then he says something that stops me every time I read it: "One thing I do."

Not ten things. Not a balanced list of priorities. One thing.

I think that's exactly what's missing for a lot of us. We're not short on ambition or effort. We're short on focus. We've got Jesus in the mix somewhere, along with our phone, our job, our relationships, our reputation, and a dozen other things quietly competing for the same attention. And when everything gets a little bit of us, nothing gets enough.

Multitasking Is a Myth, and It's Costing You More Than You Think

For years we told ourselves multitasking was a skill. Some people just have it, we said. They can do five things at once and do them well.

Except that's not actually what's happening. Cognitive psychology has studied this for a long time now, and here's what they've found: there's no such thing as multitasking. There's only switching, and some people switch faster than others. A guy playing three instruments at once on a street corner isn't doing three things simultaneously. His brain has just gotten fast at toggling between them.

There's a term for what it costs you to keep switching. It's called switch cost, and it's real. Slower reaction times. More mistakes. Mental fatigue that builds without you noticing. Weaker retention of the things you actually wanted to remember.

We are paying that cost constantly, and not just with our schedules. We're paying it spiritually. Jesus gets a portion of our attention instead of the whole of it, competing with our phone, our finances, our need for approval from people who don't even know we exist, let alone care about us. And every time we split our focus one more way, we lose a little more of what we were actually chasing.

What Your Distractions Are Telling You About Your Treasure

Whatever repeatedly captures your attention has your affection. Not what you say matters most. What actually pulls your focus, over and over, without you trying.

Jesus said it plainly: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If something else has taken up more real estate in your mind than He has, that's your treasure right now, whether you'd admit it out loud or not.

Paul understood this better than almost anyone. Before he met Jesus, he had a resume most people would envy. Born into the right family, trained under the right teachers, zealous to the point of persecuting anyone who threatened what he believed. He lists it all out in Philippians 3 like a man reading off his credentials. And then he says all of it, every accomplishment, he counts as loss. The King James is more direct. He calls it dung.

That's not Paul being dramatic for effect. That's Paul being honest about what happens when you actually encounter something greater. The things he used to build his identity on didn't just become less important. They became worthless by comparison.

The Field, the Treasure, and Why Giving Something Up Doesn't Have to Hurt

Jesus tells a short parable in Matthew 13 that captures this perfectly. A man is walking through a field and stumbles onto a hidden treasure. He doesn't announce it or try to sneak it out. He hides it again, and in his joy, he goes and sells everything he owns so he can buy that field.

Notice the detail. It says he does it in joy. Not reluctantly. Not because he's being forced to give something up. He sells everything gladly because he already knows the trade is absurdly in his favor.

That's what's happening when Paul talks about counting his accomplishments as loss. He's not grieving what he gave up. He found something so much greater that letting go of the old things felt like the easiest decision he ever made.

The cure for distraction was never more willpower. It was discovering a treasure worth more than everything else combined. Once you find that, the letting go takes care of itself.

Knowing About Jesus Isn't the Same as Knowing Him

Paul's next line is where this gets personal. He says, "that I may know Him." Not know about Him. Know Him.

There's a real difference. Plenty of people know about Jesus. They recognize a Bible reference when they hear one. They can tell you a verse sounds familiar. But recognizing something isn't the same as being in relationship with it.

Think about it this way. You might know a celebrity's voice well enough to imitate it. That doesn't mean you know what it's like to walk through a hard season with them, to have them show up for you at 2am, to actually be known by them in return. Knowing about someone and knowing someone are two entirely different things.

Jesus says it directly in John 10:27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." Sheep that know the shepherd's voice aren't confused by all the other noise around them. They're not immune to distraction. They just recognize what actually matters when they hear it, and they respond.

That kind of recognition takes time. It comes from being in His word, being in prayer, actually living in relationship with Him instead of just knowing facts about Him. The more you know Him, the less this world is able to captivate you.

Martha, Mary, and the Lie That More Effort Fixes a Distracted Life

There's a story in Luke 10 that gets at this from another angle. Jesus and His disciples come to stay in the home of a woman named Martha. She's doing everything right by most standards. She's preparing the meal, getting the house in order, making sure everything is perfect for her guest.

Her sister Mary, meanwhile, is sitting at Jesus' feet, listening to Him.

Martha gets frustrated. She comes to Jesus and basically says, don't You care that I'm doing all the work while she just sits there? Tell her to help me.

Jesus' answer is gentle but direct. "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part."

Martha wasn't wrong to want things done well. She was so distracted by the preparations that she missed the actual moment in front of her. Jesus was in her house, and she was too busy managing details to notice.

That's the trap for a lot of us. We think the answer to distraction is more effort, more organization, more discipline. But Martha had plenty of effort. What she was missing was focus on the one thing that actually mattered in that moment.

Making Him Your One Thing

Here's what I keep coming back to. There is greatness inside you. God put it there on purpose. But you will never step into that greatness until He becomes the greatest thing in your life. He won't unlock what He created you for until He has the proper place in it.

I've never seen anyone doom scrolling while running from a bear. I've also never seen anyone check their phone in the middle of their own wedding vows. Why? Because in both moments, something in front of them mattered more than anything else competing for their attention.

That's the invitation today. Not to try harder at avoiding distractions. To find something so much greater that the distractions lose their grip on their own.

If you've never made that trade, if Jesus has been more of an idea to you than someone you actually know, I'd love for you to take a step toward Him. He loves you. He gave His life so you could know Him, not just know about Him. And there's a place for you to start that conversation with us, whether that's this Sunday in person or online at col.tv.

You don't have to have it all figured out. You just need one thing.