Anything you focus on gains influence in your life. If your focus is a hobby and you spend great amounts of time on that hobby, the hobby will determine how much time you give to other things around you. If your focus is on a person, that person can become an obsession. Focusing on a fear can paralyze you. The same could be said for focusing on sickness, money or entertainment.
Failure is a result of broken focus. When we fail to give enough time and attention to certain aspects of our lives, those areas begin to suffer. Marriages have suffered due to a lack of focus. We are all focused on different things, but are we focused on the right things? Can you pull yourself away from the TV long enough to play with your children or take a walk with your spouse?
Anything that consumes our time consumes our focus. Perhaps that is why Jesus admonished us to “seek first His kingdom and righteousness.” Rather than focusing on the things we need for life, focusing on Life Himself will open the doors of His provision. The right focus is a source of peace.
Anything that keeps your attention has mastered you. “For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.” (2 Pet. 2:19) It could just as easily say, “by what a person is overcome….”
Energy is generated by focus. We make time for that which we consider important. A scattered focus will determine your destiny just as much as a singular focus. “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3:13-14) Paul understood the need to leave the past in the past and focus on his purpose in God.
Determine in your heart to whom or what you will give your time and attention. Do those people, pursuits and things give life or steal it? Are you managing your focus or are you being driven? If peace and joy in your marriage, family and surroundings doesn’t describe your life, you are probably focused on the wrong things.