The Power of a Focused Life
By Rick Warren

“Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” Proverbs 21:5 (NLT)

If you want God to use you in great ways, you need focus. The more focused you are, the more effective you’ll be—and the more God will use you. 

There’s awesome power in focus. Diffused light doesn’t have much of an effect on what it touches. But when you focus light—like the sun’s light through a magnifying glass—you can light a piece of paper or grass on fire. If you can focus it even more, it becomes a laser. A laser can cut through steel and destroy cancer.

The same is true with your life. If the course of your life lacks direction, you’ll just drift through without making an impact. But if you focus your time on a few key goals, then you can make a powerful impact on the world for God. 

The Bible says, “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty” (Proverbs 21:5 NLT).

One of the great examples of focus in the Bible is the story in Genesis 24. Abraham was getting old, and his son still hadn’t married. God had promised Abraham that he would create a great nation through Abraham’s own family, which God did. But Abraham’s son, Isaac, still didn’t have any children. He wasn’t even married yet. So Abraham gave his chief servant a goal of finding a wife for his son. Abraham told his servant, “Don’t get a wife from the Canaanite girls who live around here. Go back to my country, to the land of my relatives, and find a wife for my son Isaac.” 

Like all good goals, the servant’s was clear. He knew he needed to find Isaac a wife, and he knew exactly what kind of wife to look for. He needed to find a wife from Abraham’s homeland. 

You’ll never reach a vague goal because you’ll never know if you’ve completed it. Abraham’s servant didn’t have that problem.

For example, if your goal is to be a better parent, that’s vague. Even if you make the goal to spend more time with your children this year, you’ll never really know if you’ve completed the goal because it isn’t specific.

But if you commit to spending an hour every Tuesday evening with your children, that’s a specific goal. You’ll know whether or not you’ve completed it. Those kinds of goals will give you the focus to change your life.

What specific goal will you set for yourself this week? 

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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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