Who is Your Subject of Focus?

Tonight I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This secret has the capacity to revolutionize your life. It is not something that is readily apparent or else everyone would know it already. It seems to fit nicely into one of life’s ironies in that it seems counterintuitive in every way. Understanding this mystery can mean the difference between happiness and misery. Interestingly, it is the polar opposite of what the world teaches and promotes. It is the antithesis of every self-help book that was ever written. The secret lies within where you choose to direct your focus. Indeed, who is your subject of focus?

The world has done an excellent job in convincing us to spend more time focused on ourselves. I’m not talking about “me” time or the real need to take care of yourself. Neither am I suggesting that you never focus on things you need to learn and do to make your life better. What I’m referring to is your subject of focus. In other words, who are you thinking about the most? Admittedly it seems logical that the more time you spend focused on yourself, the better your life would be. Ironically, this is not the case. As imperfect creatures, time spent focused solely on self only leads to further discovery of the self’s imperfections. Like a great man once exclaimed, “If you want to be miserable focus on yourself.” This where self-help misses the mark. Self-help begins with the starting premise that you and I are flawed and as such, with the application of some new principles and techniques, can become so much better. And while this idea is enticing, as soon as we are finished with the work, there will be some new discrepancy to be remedied. Focus on self is an endless pursuit leading us ever back to ourselves and our garbage. Focusing on self leads us to the dark side of life. Our enemy knows this. He endeavors to keep us perpetually embroiled in some negative aspect of ourselves with the false promise that continued focus will surely lead to solutions and answers. However, focus on what is wrong with us can never lead to the answers we need because those answers can not be found within ourselves. (Read that sentence again!) Despite what you may have been told about the all-knowing insights of your heart, the reality is that your heart is simply a compilation of the thoughts you have considered the most, both good and bad. Hence the notion of a good or a wicked heart. While you may definitely know certain things in your heart, the system is only as good as your human thinking. The answers to life’s problems cannot be found in the thinking that brought them about to begin with. The soul focused solely on itself can never win. You have to change your subject of focus.

God did not design us to be perpetually focused on ourselves. Nor did He ever exhort us to “know thyself.” A philosopher said that. What God actually said is, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Again, focusing on self; why we do what we do; what is wrong with us; what things we need to fix, is a pointless endeavor. God’s plan was that we would so learn to trust Him and go to Him to meet our every need that we could finally take our focus off of ourselves and on to Him, leading us to changing our focus to helping meet the needs of other people. Have you ever notice how good you feel when something takes your focus away from almighty self? It could be work or an important project. It could be your heartfelt desire to love people, love your family, love your neighbors. It seems that any focus is better for you than self focus. Self focus robs you of life. It succeeds in sticking you in life’s mud without hope, without enthusiasm for living, without any lasting happiness. Fixing your mind on some problem or potential problem just adds to the problem. No one has ever gotten better by worrying or fearing some outcome. In reality, they only get worse. The issue isn’t the pitfalls of life. We all have to face them. The issue is your subject of focus. Who are you looking to for the help that you need?

How ironic that changing your focus away from self would lead to the improvement of yourself? Not that your imperfections were no longer present, but rather that you would finally be in a position to get some help. In effect, you would be letting something go that you could never self repair anyway. How much the world has worked us over in convincing us to stay our minds on ourselves; on the weakness of our human flesh! Instead God desires that we turn our focus to Him and what He can do. Every time we are confronted with some seemingly insurmountable problem, we are to turn our focus to Him. Anything we cannot seem to solve, and God knows we have tried, we hand over to Him. The things the world says are impossible, we turn over to Him for with Him nothing shall be impossible. Don’t you see it? We end up wasting our lives and destroying our vitality trying to solve things we are unable to solve. Looking at ourselves, examining ourselves, analyzing ourselves serves only to keep us forever bound under the hands of a cruel and wicked despot. Instead we look at the only One that can save us. We change our focus to Him and what He can do and let loose of all that we cannot do. It is the only reasonable solution, indeed the only way. We may have been fooled in the past, but we don’t have to remain fooled. Focus on self only leads to misery. Focus on Him only leads to blessedness and joy.

Who is your subject of focus? Who do you stay your mind on the most. If you have lived long enough you already know that endless focus on self never leads to anything good. Don’t buy the world’s offering. Don’t depend on the purveyors of world wisdom (philosophy). Those concepts are all lies. Have you been living in a rut of your own making? Simply change your subject of focus and the circumstances will change. Look to Him wherein every answer can be found. Get over yourself and your bologna. Get off yourself. Get some new images in mind and begin to really live again. The choice will always be yours and where your focus goes, your life will surely go. Who is your subject of focus? You know the right answer by now.

Just some good thoughts…