Wandering Mind

Busy people’s plates are always so full that their minds tend to wander. In a poll of 2,000 people conducted in the UK for Avery Office & Consumer Products sometime ago, busy people forget an average of five important facts/tasks every day.  

Some of the top answers on what people forget are: calling people back; replying to emails; colleagues’ names; cellphones; reading glasses; and files on the printer. 

Bonnie (an accountant for various firms) shared this story. “I was frantically looking for my 

reading glasses everywhere, only to be told it was perched on my head.” 

Does that sound familiar? On occasion, we find ourselves drifting, causing people we’re conversing with to ask, “Hey, are you still there?” 

There is an old hymn that speaks of wandering mind: "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” written by Robert Robinson in 1757.  The lyrics say,  “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” 

This hymn is about the writer not focusing his heart and mind on the Savior who so loves him. He is in good company. He has busy us and Apostle Paul. “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (Romans 7:19 NLT)  

Then there’s King David who had the same lament, “I have tried hard to find you—don’t let me wander from your commands.” (Psalm 119:10) 

There are too many distractions in this digitized life when we desperately want to go back to our Anchor. Even when our hearts long to seek Him, our wandering mind draws us away.  

We ask, we beg, for the Lord's restraining grace when our minds stray!