May 2026 was a big month for our son, Calvin – 14 months at the time. He gained multiple skills like finally crawling with his hands and knees instead of his forearms and his legs dragging across the ground like he’s in the Vietnam War. “This isn’t the army, Calvin” I would think to myself.
He also acquired the skill of picking my nose.
I call this recent development “chopsticks.”
Now, chopsticks refers to anytime he pokes at something with one index finger or both. But telling you the nose-picking story out of all of the things he has been poking within his first two years of being alive is the most fun to tell.
With mouth gaped open like he’s trying to disarm a bomb and the focus of a lion crouching low in the African savanna for his next meal, Calvin will whip out his chopstick fingers whenever I am laying on the ground with our offspring on top of my stomach.
Imagine for a moment that you are laying in a field facing the clouds, and as your heart is filled with contentment and gratitude, you see a balloon come into view from the left corner of your peripherals – you don’t move your head, but the balloon casually invades your view as it drifts off into the distance.
Calvin’s fingers are like that balloon. Instead of being a balloon drifting off into the stratosphere, it attacks you. From my view, I see an innocent pair of fingers, one on each hand, hovering above my face. Little do I know that in few seconds, those same fingers are looking to either do some dental work in my mouth or stab the very back of my nostrils.
Some days, when he decides to play dentist, it looks more like he dumped the ingredients of a delicious bowl of ramen in my mouth and is proceeding to mix it together with his fingers like they are utensils. Other days, I wind up with a bloody nose after he heads straight to the back of it with his little finger.
One day I was reflecting on this recent “skill” he developed, and I thought about how incredible God must be to already instill a sense of intense focus in our one-year-old boy. Nowadays, it is difficult for me to stay focused on one task at a time; yet someone who is 36 years younger than me is already focusing better than me.
Then I naturally got to thinking, What if I focus on God like this? What if the way Calvin’s fingers find their way up my nose can be applied to how I pursue God – with intense deliberation and focus.
I believe long before my nose started bleeding, Calvin already decided he was going to send his finger on a mission to see what was inside the deep, dark abyss of his dad’s nose. What if, long before my day starts, I decide to send my mind and heart on a mission to allow God into my day, my thoughts, and my conversations with others? What if I allow my ears to hear the heart of God and the Truth of Scripture and what He says about me to penetrate my mind?
“…letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace,” Romans 8:6 says.
“Think about the things of Heaven, not the things of Earth,” Colossians 3:2 commands.
In my other post, “Larry, the Wise Racquetball Ghandi,” I mentioned how Larry told me “I play better when I don’t think about the last shot.” So much of my life is focused on the last shot that I derail my momentum with God. I lose sight of him in the midst of all of the chaos I stir up in my brain.
Corrie Ten Boom once said “If the Devil can’t make us bad, he will make us busy,” and when I am busy putting all of my attention on trying to do things on my to-do list, solve problems throughout the day, and worry about things in the future, without God, it creates the chasm the Devil wants to keep building. He loves to interrupt God’s plan, and if we let him provide us with a convincing argument to not think of the things of heaven, then he’ll come up with reasons that distract us.
If you ever feel that God is out of view, you just need to “pick” your way through the outside noise and ground yourself in the Truth of who God is and how He sees you. Sure, what Calvin is after (the back of my nose) and what you’re after (closeness with God) are likely two different things, but the same means to each end can be exercised: deliberation and focus to achieve what you’re seeking.
The good news is there are plenty of resources to use to develop and maintain the habit of being close to Him and grounded in the Truth.
First, be honest in your dialogue with God. Second, immerse yourself deep in Scripture, and third, surround yourself with people who challenge you in your faith and remind you to be in lock step with God.
Who knows? After developing these habits, you might be as focused as my son is at picking my nose.