"Focussed," by Lilias Trotter

I received a link to Lilias Trotter's "Focussed" article on the net a few years ago, and it changed my thinking drastically. This 1800's missionary first to London street prostitutes and then the African Muslims had revolutional ideas that apply to today.

"Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless
worlds at once - art, music, social science, games,
motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And
between them we run the risk of drifting about, the
"good" hiding the "best" even more effectually than it could
be hidden by downright frivolity with its smothered heart-ache
at its own emptiness."

The side-interests Ms. Trotter speaks of might indeed be good things. Like taking care of my grandchildren, cooking and cleaning, organizing my home, helping with our church youth group, volunteering at the schools, and on and on. But if we take our focus off the "one thing," our concentration suffers... in everything we're trying to do.

"You have to choose which you will fix your gaze upon and let the other go," Ms Trotter says.

Lilias, an inspired artist, changed the thinking of John Ruskin, a noted art critic, who before meeting Ms. Trotter believed women could not paint. Upon meeting her in London, he was so impressed with her work that he encouraged her to devote herself entirely to her art. Lilias, however, found her true calling by God and made it her lifelong mission to serve only him and forego all else.

In time, Lilias became sick and weak in Africa and used her artistic talent to pen beautiful nature drawings to accompany her writing. She wrote “Parables of the Cross," and "Parables of the Christ Life," which can both be downloaded free at Project Gutenberg. She helped revise the Bible into Arabic and wrote “The Way of the Sevenfold Secret” for the Moslems. It’s thought that she worked harder creating literature for the native Africans in Arabic than anything else, and I can’t help but think how many lives she changed in that work.

Her “Focussed” tract inspired writer Helen Howarth Lemmel to pen the hymn “The Heavenly Vision” in 1922, which Michael W. Smith later recorded. You’re probably familiar with the chorus:

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his
glory and grace.”

Other authors have written books about Lilias Trotter's life: A Blossom in the Desert by Miriam Huffman Rockness, and A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter, by Elisabeth Elliot. You can link to these at the bottom of the page. "In Focus" appears at http://www.unveiling.org/Articles/nature15.html.


That’s all for now. Until next time, I’ll be reading…