Daily Devotional – 5/22/12 “Focus!”

Don’t you know that if you spent more time focused on yourself, you wouldn’t have time to dabble into other folk’s business? You wondering why you can’t move 2 spaces ahead when you keep turning around looking at what others are doing and you’re missing your turn. It’s like being in traffic and you not paying attention of when the traffic moves, now the car in the other lane has jumped in front of you. Now, had this been a line of blessings, that person would have received what was meant for you. So, focus on what you’re doing and stop dipping in everybody else’s Kool-Aid. I know their flavor maybe the flavor you like but you got what you’re supposed to have, so dip in your own. Yea, had you not been looking out the window trying to see what the neighbor is doing, you wouldn’t have burnt dinner but you just had to be nosey because you’re the neighborhood gossip. Child, you need to focus on what’s going on in your own yard because you can’t fix what’s happening in theirs but you can do something about your own. If you took more time to focus on your own child instead of trying to tell your sister/brother how to raise theirs, you’d be able to see the change that is happening in them. You are so busy calling your friend to tell her what her daughter posted on Facebook; you don’t realize that your daughter has you blocked. Yea, your focus is on the wrong thing. While you are constantly focusing on getting your friend through her break-up, you don’t realize that your own spouse is feeling left out. Now, don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything wrong with helping a friend in need but you can’t keep running to them every time they cry because they hear a song that reminds them of the person that left. Girl, you’d better sit your tail down and focus on your own relationship.

I know that sometimes looking back feels like the right thing to do but if it’s behind you, then that means you left it in the past and past things are unreachable but present things are within your reach. The bible says in Proverbs 4:25, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.” Yea, looking at things ahead can sometimes look blurry but if you look at it long enough, your eyes will soon focus and you’ll begin to see things clearer. Haven’t you been to the eye doctor and they ask you to read from the chart that seems like it is 200 feet away? Well, if you keep looking at it, the letters will soon begin to become clear enough to read because your focus didn’t change. Sometimes, you have to stare at a situation or circumstance just to see it clearly before you make a decision you might regret. You’re looking at a text message from someone and when you read it the first time, you get mad and before reading it again you send a response back that blows the entire situation into something that was not meant. Then when you get a response saying I didn’t mean it that way, you read it again but this time, you’re focusing on just that text message and not everything else that is going on around you and you see it totally different. Isn’t it amazing how we can make things difficult for ourselves simply because we didn’t focus? I would imagine that a tight rope walker would fall if they didn’t have their mind focused on the task at hand. Take for an example an email you’ve probably received asking you to look at the page of dots to see the picture behind it. If you focused on just that picture, your eyes would soon focus enough to make it out but if you keep allowing your focus to be off, you will never see it. This is the same way with God’s plan for your life. He keeps trying to get you to focus on starting the business you’ve been praying to him for but you keep allowing your focus to be disturbed by folks who need you every minute of the day. If you keep letting things and people interrupt your focus, you’ll never see the plan clearly and the first thing you’ll cry is God isn’t answering my prayer. No baby, it isn’t God but it’s your ability to focus.

When Jesus called Peter out of the boat to walk to him, he obeyed and was able to walk on top of the water but as soon as his focus was not on Jesus, he began to sink. It wasn’t because Jesus moved or he couldn’t do what he said he would but the bible says in Matthew 14:30, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” See, when you aren’t focused on the right thing or right somebody, you make bad choices. We are so focused on the mess that your friend called you with that you miss the opportunity of inviting them to church for the message. We are so focused on making folks laugh by forwarding a chain text of Talking Tom that we don’t realize a scripture might be all a co-worker needs to know that things won’t always be so hard. If you would have focused more on the tone of your friend’s voice rather than the movie on TV, you would have heard her cry for help before she attempted suicide. Focusing is a mindset and something that we have to choose to want to do. You know you should have been focused on school instead of socializing and now you’re failing or you should have been focusing on your marriage but now you’re in divorce court or you should have been focusing on what the car salesman said instead of being focused on the car, now you’ve signed the papers and paying 2 times more than what the car is worth. The ability to focus isn’t hard we just have to make it up in our mind to do it. If you focus on a problem that seems to hard, you’ll soon realize the mistake you’ve been making in order to get the right answer. Focusing allows you to face problems without failing because when you’re focused and faithful to God, he favors you and with his favor you won’t follow behind foolish things but you’ll find a firm foundation that allows you to forgive when it hurts, be first when you thought you’d be last, find what you thought you’d lost, fill what should be empty and fearless when you should be scared. Focus on what matters and let everything else go because if it was meant to be for you, it’ll be in your line of sight.