Life is complicated and messy and sometimes filled with pain. There are always endless tasks to finish, deadlines to meet, and worries that steal our peace. Our minds are constantly pulled in a million different directions where we are told to look like this, be like that, live like them, and acquire all the things. We compartmentalize work, family, faith, finances, fitness, and so much more. We battle traffic and taxes and tasks. We have so much on our plates that we can’t even breathe, so much so to the point we don’t even realize we can’t breathe until we collapse under the pressure and end up gasping for relief. It’s all so hard. Life can just be so hard.
Let me ask you a question, before reading this, what were you thinking about? What were you focused on? Maybe you were casually perusing something to read and not much has been bothering you or on your mind. Or maybe the opposite is true and you’ve been going through something difficult and were desperately searching for a way to change what goes on in your thoughts. You want to go from constantly worrying about what’s next to gaining a more trusting, faith-filled, and rested mind.
As I set out to write this devotional, my thoughts kept gravitating toward tackling issues that I have battled against for years and have a great deal of experience with, such as anxiety for instance. As the saying goes, “You write what you know.” But as I was trudging along, it was brought to my mind to instead, “Write what I need.” To write the words that point to the Problem Solver instead of the problem itself. I then made the realization that I was tired of giving so much attention to finding a solution to the anxiety that crippled me, and thought I could better spend all that time, energy, and focus, on Jesus.
My hope is to bring the emphasis of our thoughts to Jesus, where they should be all along, and in doing so, all those other issues we are dealing with are then minimized beneath His mighty shadow. So, let’s take a closer look at what are our thoughts are most dominated by. Are they life-giving and peace-filled thoughts or are they ever in a state of struggle as we constantly keep our eyes on our troubles themselves? When we focus on the negative, even when we are trying to work through it, we are still giving a great deal of attention to the problem and not the Solution. Let me explain. I have spent countless hours in bookstores trying to find just the right book that will speak just the right words and give me just the right solution to various problems I have had in the past. But even though I thought I was doing something positive by searching for a solution, I was still fixated on the particular issue and not the One who could help me with that issue. In essence, I needed to turn from the condition, to the Physician. From the struggle, to the Way out. I needed to focus on Jesus and how He was with me, He was working for me, and He was going to help me.
Over the next 40 days, while we work on the big things in our lives that may be the root cause of our troubles like our finances, our jobs, our friendships, our marriages, or maybe even our health, we can actually fix our focus as well. We can make the adjustments needed where our minds tend to gravitate towards, and set the focus where it needs to be, where life and freedom truly exist…on Jesus.
Kristen
