focus

Recently, during my devotion time, God began to reveal to me the importance of my focus in life. Many times our focus lingers for too long on things of our past. Things that cannot be changed and, all too often, things that reflect missed opportunities, unproductive failures and regretful decisions. I am learning that I must live today to it’s fullest in order to insure that I will experience the most incredibly illuminated path for my future while at the same time understanding, remembering and applying the often overlooked and forgotten life lessons from my past. In American culture all things are viewed, read, or listed in order of importance from left to right. It is done that way simply because we have been taught this since we were a child. Therefore, when thinking about our lives we will many times refer to the three time periods in our lives as the past, the present and the future implying that this would be the order of their importance. However, I am beginning to refocus my thoughts to reveal a more appropriate and more accurately prioritized sequence for these three time periods. This new alignment of my life has been made based on the importance I wish to allow each of these parts of my life to consume me.
Instead of referring to my past, present and future, I choose to refer to my present, future and past. You see my present is most important simply because my future is determined by how I live, plan and perceive my present. My future is more important than my past simply because my past cannot be changed but my future is still yet to be written. I should only become a student of the past, learning from my historical experiences rather than allowing my past failures to consume me.
In other words, if we continue to walk forward while insisting on looking at our past, we will most likely trip over our present and stumble into our future. Our future will only be as great as we purpose it to be in our present. God help us as leaders to live today for a meaningful tomorrow that has been wonderfully enriched by our yesterday. Amen