Have you noticed? As we stumble out of this strange summer, reality is re-arranging itself into patterns that almost look like “normal.” 

Almost.

It’s painfully easy to spot vestiges of the “weird” that has been with us such a long, weary time. 

We can name a few of them, just to orient ourselves: 

• The government continues to contradict itself almost weekly on what is actually happening with the microbe that has held the world hostage, and what is actually effective in responding to that microbe, and what is actually realistic to hope for in terms of living with that microbe (from now on) …
• The divisiveness of secular politics that so infected everything and everyone remains with us. (I would argue that divisiveness was and is WAY more widespread than the coronavirus.) And we have gotten used to it. In fact, anger and resentment are normalized in a way that masking and vaccines may never be.
• Some folks here at home and many, many folks in other countries are struggling to survive financially. Subsistence economies cratered in a way that makes “recovery” sound like a pipe dream… and real people are suffering, acutely, every day, because the pandemic cost even more livelihoods than it did lives.
• The pandemic is still a thing. Some countries are burying more people than ever; in our country, some hospitals are back at capacity. We are sick and tired of thinking about it, but sickness and suffering persist.

But…

But these dreary facts of the recent past and the right-now exist side by side with other facts that startle us with the hopefulness for which they stand! 

We really have to name a few of them, too, because we have longed for them for so long:

• “Back to school” really IS back to school this year! Our children will not be caged in front of computer screens when term-time begins; our children will get to go to school – a real place – and learn from teachers – real people, in the room with them – and giggle with peers who are tangibly present to them. Hallelujah! 
• Extended families are celebrating together! Grandparents are hugging grandchildren! The long ache of distance makes reunions all the sweeter, and reunions are happening. Hallelujah!
• Communities that have held onto one another via zoom (Foundations Sunday School, I am talking to YOU!) are replacing screen emojis with actual hugs and high-fives. All the frustrations of wi-fi, slow internet, faulty connections, etc. are suddenly moot, because in-person is possible. Hallelujah!

Two (competing) realities

If the last 18 months has taught me anything, it’s the critical importance of choosing where to focus. Opportunities for fear and rage have abounded – and continue to abound. But opportunities for gratitude and wonder abound, too. Even in the midst of the darkest and most difficult hours. I get to choose – moment by moment – which opportunities I embrace.

It is one thing to accurately acknowledge circumstances. It is something else to be driven by them. Recent events have convicted me:

My focus is the difference between living in fear and living in hope. 

My focus is the difference between contempt for my enemies and compassion for my neighbors. 

My focus is the difference between scope-locked lack and Spirit-powered abundance. 

It’s sad that it took a pandemic to tutor me on focus; scripture is replete with good teaching on the matter. “Fix your eyes on Jesus,” the author of Hebrews wrote. “Look to the Lord always; seek His face,” David sang (1 Chronicles 16:11) Jeremiah quoted God: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

But focus is hard – especially when circumstances feel overwhelming! Think of Jesus’s disciples, so freaked out by a storm that they forgot God was literally in the boat with them. We humans can feel at the mercy of extreme circumstances even down to our capacity to focus on God.

Building “Focus Muscles”

How do we strengthen that capacity to focus on God, regardless of circumstances? 

Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy, “God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:7) 

The fruit of the Spirit concludes with “self-control.” (Galatians 5:22) 

And Proverbs 25:28 offers the sobering corollary: “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” 

We strengthen our capacity to stay focused on God the same way we strengthen our physical muscles: repetition. The Spirit-breathed self-control required to start the reps in the first place is ours for the asking, so we must ask – and then practice – and then ask – and then practice.

A caveat about muscle memory

Misfocus, too, is strengthened by repetition. 

When we fix our eyes on the people, situations, limitations, and possibilities that make us anxious, we are literally building our capacity for anxiety. 

When we meditate on the things that make us angry, we get angrier. 

When we look to the world for distractions from our despair, our despair increases alongside our distractedness! 

Ironically, it is our misapplied self-control that grows our misfocus muscles. However helpless we may feel in the midst of our circumstances, that helplessness is only a feeling. Scripture is clear. We always get to choose our focus. Victor Frankl powerfully added his witness to the scriptural record when he asserted, after years of unspeakable deprivation in a Nazi concentration camp, “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

Focused self-control – and misfocused self-control – begins with our choosing.

It is strengthened by Spirit-powered repetition.

And it is perfected by pushing against resistance, persevering through exhaustion, and pulling constantly from the supply of the Spirit.

A “Focus Regimen”

I’m asking God to help me in strengthening my self-control and in applying that self-control to my focus.  

And I’m using the list (below) to keep me on track with my training – I hope it blesses you in your own focus-building.

Let’s agree: reality can be excruciating. But Truth is steadfast and intrinsically good – and Truth outlasts reality, every single time. 

Focusing on Truth enables us to impact reality for eternal purposes, rather than being defeated in the moment by transitory things. 

An overcomer who helps others, or a defeated victim who cannot help herself? 

Only my focus (which God empowers me to choose for myself as I exercise self-control through His abiding Spirit) determines which is true of me.

The Focus Regimen Cheat Sheet… swap the misfocus items for the focus items, and grow in faith!

Life-Draining Misfocus

Disobedience to God

Time wasted

Reading / watching garbage

Obsessing about me / mine

Straining ahead or looking back

Letting urgency set my agenda

Worry

Resentment

Unforgiveness

Chaotic busyness

Chasing affirmation or approval

Life-Giving Focus

Obedience to God

Time in God’s Word

Reading good books

Investing in relationships

Seeing today as a gift

Prioritizing first things

Recalling God’s faithfulness

Gratitude

Sincere forgiveness

Settled routine with margins

God’s statement of my worth