3 Ways to Become More Focused on God
“Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established.” – Proverbs 4:25-26 (NKJV).
Focusing on God
Just as a camera lens allows us to focus in on what we want to see most, what we turn our hearts towards will be the focus of our attention in our lives. As Christians, we should desire to focus in on what God has for us this year.How well we focus on God can be linked to our relationship with Him. If our relationship with God is stagnant or wavering, then our heart's focus will turn to other things. However, if our relationship with Him is flourishing, then our focus will continue to stay on Him, and our relationship will grow stronger.
Related Post: Revival Begins with Humility
This is why cultivating an intimate relationship with God is so important. A strong relationship with God is the perfect environment for us to focus on Him and His desires for us.
It's Not One and Done
When we come to develop a relationship with Christ, there seems to be a misconception that that’s it. But there’s so much more to it than receiving salvation and moving on with life. It requires us to continually seek Him in our times of need and in times of joy because we know we can’t do anything in our own strength. We learn to humble ourselves and ask for those things that we lack.
“Coming before God in quietness and waiting on Him in silence can accomplish more than days of feverish anguish.” - A.W. Tozer
There are various stories in the Bible where those who were chosen by God had to come before God in humility and wait on His timing. Take for instance Abraham and Sarah, who had to wait till they were old to have the promised son Isaac. In fact, even after God revealed His promise to Abraham that he would have a son and be the father of a great nation, it was still another 25 years before Sarah actually gave birth to Isaac. You can read the full story of Abraham in Genesis 12-22As A.W. Tozer said, coming before God requires waiting on Him in silence and quietness. This is what it means to really focus on God. Focusing on God requires humility and patience. It also requires that we are to read our Bibles, worship Him wherever we are, and so much more. It's about building a relationship with Him through spending time with Him and keeping Him at the center of all we do.The purpose of focusing on God and spending time with Him isn’t just so we can check it off of our lists of things we’ve done. It’s to fully and wholeheartedly chase after Him with everything that we have: our bodies, our minds, and our souls.
“Commit your work to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” Proverbs 16:3 (NKJV)
3 Ways to Get Our Focus on Him This Year
As Christians, focusing on God this year should be a theme that we all strive for because, when it’s all said and done, our relationships with God today will affect how we live our lives for all eternity.Through these last couple of weeks since the beginning of the new year, I’ve been thinking about what it means to focus on God. Here are 3 lessons we can all implement in our lives this year to get our focus on God and off of our own ambitions.
1) Sometimes focusing on God requires Sacrificing Your Personal Time
Why do we think we aren’t getting the intimacy in our relationship with God? Is it because of us? These are the questions that we should ask whenever we begin to wonder why our lives are going the way that they are going and why our relationship with God isn't what we want it to be.
“But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Hebrews 13:16 (NKJV)
Our relationship with God should be the focal point for whatever we do in life. Sometimes, this means sacrificing our personal time to spend it with Him. Although we may not always want to, spending time with God and developing a personal relationship with Him will ultimately result in the kind of life that we desire to have in Him.On top of that, when we are in tune to where God is leading us, He may ask us to sacrifice our own time and desires to follow what He wants us to do. Bold faith can be uncomfortable. It may look like saying yes to spending time with a hurting friend or saying yes to volunteering while having to say no to something else. When we listen to the Holy Spirit within us, He will guide us on what to say yes and no to. Sometimes this looks like setting our own desires down in order to pursue what God has assigned us to accomplish.
2) Focusing on God Requires Humility
Humility is not something that many humans choose to utilize in their lives. Even as Christians, learning to let go of our pride is difficult because we’re still human beings.
“Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self.” - Charles Spurgeon
When we learn to take our focus off of ourselves and put it on God, everything can begin to change. We can begin to see how we treat others, ourselves, and even our relationship with God.
“Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, And before honor is humility.” Proverbs 18:12 (NKJV)
Humility is the first step towards a closer relationship with our Heavenly Father. We cannot draw close to Him when we are wrapped up in pride, but when we lay that aside, we allow the space for God to come in and transform our hearts. When we are convinced of our own rightness, we cannot receive His true righteousness made available to us through His Son. Humility gets us out of the way so we can listen and follow where God is calling us.
3) Focusing on God Requires Us to Trust Him
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)
Trusting in God can be difficult because we like to know how things are going to go in our lives. We like to know what to expect. Because of this, we often tend to rely on our own understanding, our own logic, and our own plans instead of trusting in God's perfect will and timing.Focusing on God helps us to trust in God’s timing, even when it’s difficult. By trusting God, we allow Him to light up a path for us. He may not illuminate the end destination, but He will always show us the next step.
A.W. Tozer says, “Trust God in the Dark until the Light Returns.”
Trusting God requires more than just our words. It requires us to narrow our focus from ourselves to the One who has all the answers.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:7 (NKJV)
Focus Up
Learning to focus on God takes a lifetime. The business of life can bog us down, but that's even more reason to pause in the quiet to get our focus on God. If we desire to focus on God first and foremost, everything else in life becomes something better than we could ever imagine.Make it a point today to practice surrendering to Him. When we give Him our time, humility, and trust, we create the space in our lives for Him to do the miraculous.