What you believe is a product of what you focus on. Focus on your circumstances in the context of failure, fear and disappointments, and you will begin to think these things about your life and future. Whereas if you look for the opportunities and potential in your circumstances you will begin to believe for and attract great things into your life.
What’s in your line of vision, because this FOCUS will govern your beliefs, future and destiny.
A great illustration of the correlation between focus and belief is the account of Moses’s twelve spies sent out to survey the land after the Israelite’s deliverance from Egypt and slavery. (Numbers chap 13-14) These twelve men were all “giants” in their own right, being leaders of their tribes and renowned as men of courage whom everyone looked to for guidance and protection. They were essentially the “cream of the crop”, chosen from a community of over three million people for their leadership skills and ability.
Yet sadly, history doesn’t remember most of these men as great men of faith and leadership, but as individuals who focused on their weaknesses and caved under pressure. They even plotted to kill Joshua and Caleb, their fellow spies, when they refused to tremble in fear and unbelief regarding the land God had led them so miraculously to.
The difference between Joshua and Caleb was that they refused to focus on the strength of their enemies fortified cities, the fierceness of the people who lived there or the vastness of the land and all the possible what-ifs.
Instead, they focused on the potential and opportunity God had brought them to. They looked at the land and saw its fruitfulness, the blessing, the provision and the great vision and plan God had for them as a people.
Joshua and Caleb didn’t negate the challenges they would face regarding the land’s inhabitants. However, on acknowledging the problems, they then chose to extinguish doubt and unbelief from their hearts and minds by focusing on God’s blessing and ability and remembered what He had already brought them through.
The choice of their focus shaped what they believed and, consequently, everything they saw, heard and spoke as a result. This choice enabled both them and their immediate families to enter the land, while everyone else their age and older died, having never lived the life for which God had planned. (Read the account in Numbers 13:1-31; 14:1-36)
Be careful what you are focusing on because it will shape your future, because what you “see” will either enhance or limit your ability to possess your promise, or keep you wandering in a “desert” of fear, indecision, lost dreams and potential.
We are all called and chosen for something; But it’s whether we are both individually and corporately brave enough to focus on what God says and is revealing and then decide to step forward when He says, “move!”
Choose well what and where you focus today and determine to stick to the path of truth and confidence in God. Then just as Caleb and Joshua did, you will inherit your own promised land.
“Set your gaze on the path before you. With fixed purpose, looking straight ahead, ignore life’s distractions. Watch where you’re going! Stick to the path of truth, and the road will be safe and smooth before you. Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked for even a moment or take the detour that leads to darkness.” (Proverbs 4:25 TPT)
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9 NLT)
“So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that He has promised.” (Hebrews 10:35 NLT)
Prayer: Lord, please help me learn the lessons from your Word and choose wisely what I focus upon. Forgive me for when I have stepped back in fear and believed a “bad report” regarding my future when you repeatedly say you have plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future beyond my wildest dreams and imagination. I believe for great things to unfold in my life today. In Jesus name. Amen
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