The Importance of Focus

In my mind’s eye, my picture of focus is that of a surveyor looking through a transit; even just a fraction of a degree off point will not be noticeable at first, but the further you walk, the further you will get from the line you’re supposed to be walking.

Unfortunately, I can relate more than I’d care to admit; I’ve been realizing recently how my focus has been off in a few key areas of my life. I have gotten lazy and selfish with a number of things, and I have not been giving my best to the people around me. These problems started when I got tired, went into ‘autopilot’ and stopped looking to God for direction.

As I continued on this train of thought, I realized that America has a similar focus problem that stems from an identity issue, because somewhere along the line our focus shifted from God. When that happened, we lost sight of who we are because we lost sight of our Creator; when we do not know who we are, we cannot be who we were made to be, and we get even more misdirected when we look to the wrong source of wisdom for these answers.

We will only see our need for God’s grace when He removes the scales from our eyes and we see how desperately broken we are; in the meantime, people are on a fruitless mission to find purpose and satisfaction with band aids to try to fix the mess we’ve made of ourselves. It really saddens me to see how many people have convinced themselves that they are good enough to have earned God’s favor; to them, I say that the only thing we’ve ever earned is an eternity in hell.

In every area of life, focus is paramount; no artist, sports player, or worker can go anywhere without it. My question is, if focus is such a big issue, why is focus on our Creator and Savior so easily and readily put aside?