I’m a distractible creature.
And then I’m TOO focused.
If I’m doing something that my mind and emotions are not super interested in, it takes all the extra work to keep me from getting distracted by everything. However, if I’m doing something I love, I can go for hours and not take a break.
My emotions and my thinking can impact my focus. And anxiety has a crazy way of REALLY messing up my focus. How about you?
Cory Brock in TableTalk Magazine defined anxiety like this:
“It is an ongoing, fearful restlessness wherein we imagine hypothetical circumstances of loss. The anxious one is playing the prophet by looking into the possible futures and imagining what it might feel like to lose something we love. Therein, common anxiety develops when we fear losing something we find truly precious. That over-concern spirals into a vicious circle of spiritual—and oftentimes physical—damage.”
Wowzers! Did anyone else feel the truth of that definition? “Hypothetical circumstances of loss”, “possible futures”.
I love having an imagination, but in this case, it’s not always beneficial. If my focus goes in the wrong direction, it leads me to being anxious, sad, and less efficient spiritually. And if you’re like me, most of the “worst case scenarios” I create in my head don’t happen. I’m “spinning in mud” and going nowhere because of “hypothetical circumstances” causing me to worry.
So what does the Bible have to say about focus and anxiety and all that?
The perfect Sunday School answer: Jesus.
Our family has walked a long journey of hurt and grief for the past 10 months. Different kinds of hurts. Different kinds of griefs. Right now, it’s easy to get distracted by the fear of “what’s going to happen next?”, but God is calling our hearts to look to Him. Focus on Jesus. Because, as I told my kids this morning, “If God loves us so much that He would give His son to die for us to be made right with Him, then we can trust that whatever He has planned for us, it is for our ultimate good and God’s ultimate glory.”
Basically He’s encouraging us to love Him more than our love of our “precious things” and then our priorities will be set so we can focus on the things that really matter…instead of the ones that may never happen.
Does that automatically fix everything? Nope. Are all my problems instantly solved? No.
But it DOES remind me of a truth that does not shake despite the dragons and fire and hurt and fear. God is NEAR! He is LOVE. And He is FOR US.
I can relate to all of that about our imagination running wild, spiraling out of control with all the worse cade scenarios. Robbing me of peace and rest- 2 things that my heavenly Father promises I can have in Him. Then I readjust my focus and look to Him and His word. But it definitely is a constant back and forth for me. I know He is continually reminding me no matter what, He has good plans for my life and He doesn’t waste one single thing. Sometimes it takes me longer than other times to refocus, but it’s always so much better when I turn to Him. Even just sharing those fears and anxieties with Him helps as long as I leave it with Him and don’t pick up the burden again myself.
So sorry your family has been going through so many trials. II Timothy 1:7 is my go to verse for such times in life, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
That one, and I Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”