How's Your Focus?

Yesterday at church I picked up a brochure for our upcoming women’s fall retreat.  The theme is based on Hebrews 12:1-2, which encourages us to get rid of all the extras that might slow us down and run the race of faith as well as we can.  Not surprisingly, this idea is right up my alley – because I believe that everything in life is about faith.  I also believe that faith is ultimately all about focus.  Here’s how these verses plus verse 3 say it:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher, [bringing it to maturity and perfection] . . . Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”

This Scripture comes right after Hebrews 11, which is an exhaustive list of examples of past people of faith.  The writer helps us to remember that the Christian life is a long-distance race rather than a short sprint and that we need to be encouraged by the lives of those who have struggled with faith prior to us in order to keep faithfully running.  This is the first part of having a properly focused faith.

But even more important to remember in terms of focus is that the writer of Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus.  Since Christ is both the start and the finish of our faith-race, weariness and discouragement can be overcome by properly fixing our eyes on him.  Just as a runner who looks at his feet, we will surely stumble if we look at ourselves or our circumstances.

I hope these verses encourage you to keep your focus on the right things and to not allow your faith to waver because of what you encounter in life.  Life is always changing, but Jesus never does; and keeping our eyes focused on him affects how we look at everything else.