Have you ever experienced talking on the phone while someone in the room asks a question or tried to converse with another while the television competes for your attention?

Have you ever found yourself around a table where two separate, intriguing conversations were occurring simultaneously, forcing you to flit from one to the other, desperately trying to process both?

Have you ever been deeply engrossed in thinking through some disturbing problem at the same time a family member tries to speak with you, only to realize that your responses were coming out wooden and superficial?

At a social gathering, have you ever "tuned someone out" because you had what you considered a more important item to discuss with someone else in attendance?

Every one of us, at one time or another, has found ourselves in situations like these, and the results turn out identically. Because our attention must vacillate between two (or sometimes more) competing stimuli, we lose both pieces of information unless we deliberately and forcefully attend to the one and cancel out the other.

Psychologist D.E. Broadbent has developed a model of attention in which he uses a Y-shaped tube large enough to receive a ping-pong ball. When the experimenter inserts two ping-pong balls at once into each arm of the Y, they will collide at the juncture, and neither one will get through.

In his article, "Time Organization," motivational expert Paul Meyer stresses, "Don't try to be ambidextrous, either physically or mentally. If you try to do one task, while thinking about another, both tasks will suffer, and you will do poorly on both." Many studies have shown that such multitasking is ultimately less productive than working on one task at a time.

In Scripture, God Almighty makes it abundantly clear that double-mindedness or split-allegiances place our spiritual growth and development—and ultimately our salvation—in peril. The apostle James' entire epistle touches on the theme of double-mindedness, warning that if our prayers vacillate between doubt and faith, we may end up with nothing. This fact leads him to conclude, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8).

Later in the same epistle, James prescribes the antidote as maintaining a single, fixed focus on God's will and purpose for us. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8). He suggests that the heart becomes impure and contaminated when it tries to maintain two competing and warring allegiances.

In a similar context, his half-brother Jesus warns us, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13).

The ground rule for this proscription against double-mindedness and the commandment for singleness of heart and purpose appears as the first commandment of all, which Jesus labels the "greatest" (Mark 12:30). Its original declaration in Deuteronomy 6:5 follows the well-known Shema found in verse 4: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength" (emphasis ours throughout). This singleness of purpose becomes emphasized several times throughout the book of Deuteronomy.

And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul . . .. (Deuteronomy 10:12)

And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul . . .. (Deuteronomy 11:13)

In these scriptures, the common denominator seems to revolve around the heart. We know, of course, that "heart" does not refer to the organ that pumps blood through the human circulatory system but refers figuratively to the very core of the thinking, feeling, reasoning, and evaluating part of each human, the very source of all affections. Wise Solomon instructs us to safeguard and protect the heart as our chief priority: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23).

Immediately following this admonition to safeguard and protect the heart, he gives specific instructions to keep the heart pure and uncontaminated. Notice Proverbs 4:25, 27: "Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. . . . Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil." Not looking to the right or left conveys the notion of metaphorical "spiritual blinders" guiding us away from harmful and destructive distractions, keeping our focus singular.

Jesus echoes this in His teaching in His Sermon on the Mount. He tells His disciples, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good [literally, single], your whole body will be full of light" (Matthew 6:22). Here, Jesus considers singleness of mind or having an undivided focus to be "good," clear, healthy, or sound. When we take in the light of God's truth in a faithful, dedicated, devoted manner, our Savior promises that the whole body—the totality of our lives—will benefit from its multitudinous blessings.

In Part Two, we will consider the relationship between singleness of focus and purity of heart and how we need them as we face the perils of this life.