Shift Your Focus

Part Two: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

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What you focus on grows.

Shift Your Focus, is part two of the three-part blog post, Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. In part one of this series, I talked about how I began to speak positively over my life. Once I began to change my words and started to speak life, I began to shift my focus towards those positive things. It is not that I focused on the negative things that often, I just stopped giving them center stage. I put them behind the curtain and began focusing on where I was and what I needed to do from there. I continued to pray for help and began to speak to God about who I want to be, what I want to do, and asked Him to give me specific plans to make them happen in my life. However, you must be fully committed, be ready, and willing to do the work that will be required. Part of Luke 12:48 says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

If you want your life to change for the better, you cannot continue to entertain negative thoughts because what you focus on grows. If you focus on the negative, then you will feel defeated and overwhelmed by the challenges in your life. You must control your thoughts by monitoring what you allow to take residence in your mind. Be careful of what you watch, listen to, who you spend time with, etc. The things you allow in your life should add to you, not subtract. They should be beneficial to your journey.

Now, this does not mean that it may not be difficult at times or that you will always want to do what is required. However, it should be for your good, be an investment in your character and add to your life. Believe me, there are few times that God asks me to do things that come without me having to stretch beyond what is normally comfortable for me. That may be because of my prayers – I pray for what I cannot do on my own. The more I see God move in my life, the more mature I become in my belief, and the bolder my prayers have become. So, if you pray bold prayers just know there probably will be more required of you. However, when it is your heart’s desire, it is easier to stay focused because you have the hope of your promises to keep you.

If you shift your focus to what you hope for (the prize), do each task you must complete to accomplish it (the mark), you will get there one step at a time. Knowing the big picture, what you want, need, or hope for is good. However, if the “big picture” is what you need God to do (and I believe it should be), then you need to ask God to give you the baby steps. Those are the small steps that you must focus on that will get you there and cause you not to become overwhelmed. They are the things that seem small, and sometimes even insignificant, but make all the difference. You don’t have to figure out the intimate details of how it’s going to happen or how it’s going to work, He will do that. You do not have to analyze it, God’s got it. You just have to do what I said in my book, “Follow the leader.” If you just follow God’s instructions to the letter and not go your own way, you will get there one step at a time. Just remember to focus on the prize to remain encouraged.

Try to remember to always ask God for a plan because He said that we do not have because we do not ask (James 4:2). Also, Proverbs 3:6 says that if we submit to Him in all of our ways, He will make our paths straight. This helps because you do not have to bear the burden of figuring everything out. You can consult God because he has all the answers and He knows all the details (what, when, where & how). This is what allows me to focus on my part, which is to follow His instructions step-by-step, and not be distracted or overwhelmed during the journey.

Ask God for His plans in prayer, change your words by speaking life, begin to focus on what you hope for in your life, and activate your faith by following His instructions. Click the link for Part Three, Change Your Perspective, the final part of the Change Your Mind, Change Your Life series.