The two pictures you see here are taken from our campus balcony here in Haiti. We have been blessed with a pretty sweet view right? 

Now take a look at the pictures again, this time however try to find out what sets them apart from each other. Do you see it? They are almost the exact same picture, except for one sole difference, the focus changes. You may ask, “why is that important?”

It’s important because our focus dictates what is most valuable to us, what we’re striving for. 

Think about this….

When you change what you are choosing to focus on, your perspective on everything completely changes! 

Okay, get ready because we are about to go down an analogy rabbit trail….

You can clearly see that there are 3 trees in each of these pictures. Now let’s say that the tree in the middle represents Jesus and the kingdom of heaven and the two other trees and surrounding area represent this world, our circumstances, other people, basically everything but our Messiah. 

In the picture on the right you see that the tree in the middle is blurry and everything surrounding it is in focus. This makes the picture a bit chaotic and overwhelming.

Now, the picture on the left clearly draws our gaze to the middle tree. Everything else has become a blur and the only thing that really seems to matter is Jesus and his Kingdom. 

Are you starting to follow….

When you change what you are choosing to focus on, your perspective on everything completely changes! 

So, the point of this whole analogy is that when you choose to put your focus on Jesus everything in the world is still there, but it is not as overwhelming or prominent, it doesn’t steal our full attention, it takes a backseat. However when we choose to focus on everything else; this world, our circumstances, our finances, our jobs, other people, etc, the one thing that is actually important becomes blurry and then we have trouble. 

This sounds great and all but that’s just it, “it sounds great.”. Putting this into practice is a completely different and challenging story. This is something I deeply desire! 
I want to completely focus on Jesus all the time, but in reality I don’t. Things are always way better when Jesus has my full attention, so why is this so hard? Well let me tell you, we are human and no matter how much effort we expend to keep Jesus at the forefront we are prone to forget, and forget often. So sad day, we cannot be perfect at this and this, and Satan jumps at the opportunity to cut through the frame, leaving us confused and misguided. Why is it this way? God wants to see us choose him over and over again. As mentioned in Romans 7 it’s only by the grace of God that we are saved from our wretched flesh. He gives us new eyes and new perspective, new focus and fixation, we can learn and seek God and he can help us become better by focusing in on him first, giving him our full attention over and over again. What a good savior we have, who is full of grace and patience. Our God is love, so it only makes sense that his desire for us is to receive love and return it. So, allow yourself to fully reside in the love of Christ, and in doing so refocus on Him.