The Voice We Listen To

      Race is an incredible movie on many levels, but the best part for me was the message and lesson about focus and what voice to listen to. The coach told Jesse Owens that they will love you and they will hate you, but when you are out there in the race, you are alone. He was reminding him to think about his goal rather than the opinions of others.
      Then, the following locker room scene was amazing. There was a lot of deafening noise: white guys calling him racially motivated names, the football coach screaming at him, the echoing of all the loud noise and his own coach trying to tell him what to do.  The coach overpowered the other distractions by saying that the only voice he should listen to was his (coach's) voice.

      My job experiences in an urban elementary school, where there are a lot of distractions for my students made this particularly meaningful to me.  Sometimes there are students misbehaving and lots of noise in the hall.  Sometimes there numerous simultaneous distractions for students.  I teach the students to ignore the misbehavior of others, focus on their assignments and responsibilities, and listen to the teacher's voice. When I see students forcing themselves to focus, when the normal response would be to watch the misbehaviors/antics of others or allow themselves to get distracted, I am elated.  I think that the power to focus will serve them well in life.
      There are so may distractions in this world and it is so easy to get distracted from what really matters.  The Bible is full of scriptures to remind us what to think about, what to focus on and what to do.  I could quote about 20 verses on this subject right here, but I will not.  The power of focus is incredibly important and is something I think about often.  But there is something to be considered even more than focus.
       What voice do we listen to? What voice to we focus on?  As a parent, I would like my son to listen to his parents,  As a teacher, I would like my students to listen to my voice and my instruction. As a Christian, there is only one voice that I can listen to.
        "...The sheep follow him, for they know his voice."  That is a great illustration that Christ used to remind us what voice Christians have to listen to.  Part of the response that Christ gave to Pilate, when asked if he was a king, was "...Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."  There are a lot of sounds, a lot of noise, a lot of distractions and a lot of confusion.  I am reminded the importance of the voice we choose to focus on and the voice we listen to.