How To Get FOCUSED!

Imagine wrestling with the profound battles of the mind as the year ends and new beginnings beckon, like getting that gym membership you always promise yourself. I take you on a journey through my own struggles with unused gym contracts, drawing insightful parallels between physical and spiritual battles. Our minds are the ultimate battlegrounds, and I'm arming myself with scripture like Colossians 3:16 to resist distractions and deceptions. We'll also touch on a common pitfall: idolizing political figures, reminding ourselves that true faith should rest in God, who remains in control regardless of political sway.

Marriage and faith share eerily similar challenges. Picture this: a big fight with my wife led to doubts and reflections, only to realize the issue was with my perspective. Shifting focus to her needs, I regained a renewed appreciation for our relationship. This mirrors our faith journey, where initial excitement can fade, making commitment a challenge. As a pastor and business owner, I emphasize the importance of incorporating God in every decision, aiming for success and authenticity in both our personal and professional lives.

Amidst the chaos of modern life, finding focus can seem impossible. I'll share my strategy of dedicating time to prayer, scripture, and praise each morning to maintain balance. We explore the societal pressures of constant communication and how social media affects mental health. Through my experiences, like the stress of maintaining a podcast, I highlight the importance of spiritual nourishment and inner transformation over superficial changes, encouraging genuine transformation by rooting out lies and embracing scriptural truth. Join me as we discuss how setting spiritual priorities can help navigate life's distractions and keep us centered on what truly matters.

Chapters

• 0:00 Battle of the Mind
• 8:54 Staying Focused in Faith and Marriage
• 13:56 Finding Focus in a Distracted World
• 21:29 Cultivating True Transformation Within
• 27:36 Rooting Out Lies, Embracing Truth
• 40:21 Finding Peace Through Focused Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Before we get into today's video, I just wanted to say thank you to all of the new subscribers. If you haven't yet consider subscribing, hit that bell notification so that you can see every time I put out a new video. A major portion of you that watch my videos haven't subscribed yet, so why not? It's free. You can also find a PayPal link below if you want to give a one-time or give a monthly to support the channel. Anything, great or small, is appreciated. Now let's get into the video. What is up? Faith and Failures families. So glad you decided to stop by and join me today. Join me today.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Well, we are coming up on the end of the year and, just like everybody else does, you may be getting a gym membership. Of course, you may try to beat the crowd and get into december instead of january so that you don't feel like you are starting something that you won't finish. We got into a year contract. I, I think, maybe the first year, maybe the second year we lived in Longview. We paid monthly. Now we did three, four months solid. It wasn't that great of a gym, but we did it, we paid for it and we were those people that spent that money and we didn't use it. Now, we started off really good, but it just kind of tanked, waited till our year was up and we did not sign the contract it happens.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So, like we've been doing in this series of a Bible study, we're talking about the battleground of the mind that your your your greatest battleground, that you'll fight, and to be prepared for this battle, I'm trying to give you some tools so that you can know how to fight, know what you're fighting against and hopefully, by the end of every episode, you can, uh, have a little better understanding. Uh, and some tools in your tool belt, some, uh, some gear so that you can be able to fight when the enemy comes your way, because the enemy enemy may not be able to read your thoughts, but he can whisper in your ear, he can, um, make you believe things about yourself, about other people, about the word of God, about excuse me about all kinds of different things. He's good at what he does, so I want to try to help you stay focused and really fight the battle. Well, so let's look at our first verse. Colossians, chapter 3, verse 16 says our first verse, colossians 3, verse 16. It says Let the message about Christ and all its richness. Fill your lives, teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. So what we're going to be talking about today is getting focused. How can you get your focus back? So I know I've done this. I have been in a very hyped up. I get excited about things and I say I will never. You know, hey, we just had a voting. Season is finally over, thank God. Hey, we just had a voting. Season is finally over, thank God.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I hate this time because people start making it into a religion and it gets on my nerves. They start idolizing politicians and that's not where our answer lies. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but that's not who's going to deliver us. That's not who's going to save us. That's not who is going to bring us together.

Speaker 1: 3:47

If we say it's a person in the White House or a person over a district or a person over a state, if we don't have this person, god is not in control. You don't understand who God is. You have minimized God into a political party or into a politician and you have no clue who he is. Let me be very clear with that. I don't care if I lose people or you unsubscribe, that's fine. If you think that God is not in control until you get the person you want in the position you want, you don't understand who God is at all. That's just the facts.

Speaker 1: 4:19

We have to stop trying to make idols out of men and worship the one true God. And the Bible says that whoever ends up there, god has allowed it to happen. Well, god has placed them there to pray for them, and we know that in the end times which I believe we are in right now, it's going to get worse. There's going to be people we're not going to like. There's going to be people saying truth is lies and lies is truth, and it makes actual truth so unclear and muddy when you don't base it, when you don't know how to fight the battle, because you're not basing your truth on the word of God, like the word of God should be your foundation, the word of God should be your starting point and it should be your ending point and everything in between. So we have to get focused. Uh, if we lose our focus, we can lose our way, and when we begin to lose our way, it's very easy for us to stray, for us to get distracted, for us to be tricked by the enemy.

Speaker 1: 5:28

So politicians are really good at saying I will never fill in the blank with whatever, I will never do this or I will always do that. Well, why is it that when we do this, like I'm never going to eat carbs again, like yeah, yeah, like right now you can see like bro's got some fat on him I will never eat sweets again, starting monday and on sundays that don't count and wednesday nights, because that's church days and those belong to the lord. Nobody knows. God doesn't count calories or carbs. Amen, somebody. So, like we start all of a sudden going into the I'm never gonna do this, but just in case I have a backup, or just in case, uh, I'm gonna stick with this verbiage, this ideology mindset, because, well, nobody's perfect, right.

Speaker 1: 6:19

So why do we never seem to keep our proclamations or coming up our new year resolutions? The same happens when we read or we study the Bible. This is why, at my church, I do a challenge of 15. It's five minutes in prayer, five minutes of reading the word, five minutes of praising, every single day. And I give out this mandate to the people all the time and sometimes I find it hard just to do a simple 15. So I started putting systems into place to where, instead of turning on a podcast and even though it may be a Christian podcast where I'm ingesting the word, I think sometimes we substitute the actual word for those types of things, and we shouldn't do that. The word of God is the word of God. A podcast is something to accompany or help to give. Maybe understanding to like this one is to you know, get you on a train of thought, to help the way you see things, to help shape and mold you. But your foundation, your starting point should be the word of God, and if you don't know the word of God, then everything I'm saying to you or reading on the screen and all this other stuff won't make sense. So we have to, even if it's in small bites.

Speaker 1: 7:39

If you're new to Christianity or maybe you've been serving God for a while, but yet you still have issue with remaining as dedicated as you were. We do this when we date, when we get married, all right, everything is great, sometimes the first few weeks, sometimes the first few months, sometimes the first few years. And when we go to a new church, everything is great. But then they do something we don't like or agree with. And then you start to find out why you were really there in the first place or why you were really with that person. Are you there because God led you there to? Did God connect you in that way? Or were you there for the good time and the good time ran out? Were you there because there was some hype going on, and now the hype is kind of faded because now you're on the inside instead of the outside. And now the hype is kind of faded because now you're on the inside instead of the outside.

Speaker 1: 8:26

Things aren't as shiny on the inside, things aren't as new and they're not, as they don't, wow you as much. The worship isn't as good anymore. It could be the exact same people from beginning to end, but the worship isn't good enough. And now, well, the preaching is, he says this a certain way and he talks like this. And well, I really don't like that anymore. And and uh, he's kind of simple minded. You know, I'm just assuming that's what people think of me. I don't really know.

Speaker 1: 8:54

But all these things, when you first come to a church, when you first get into Christianity, when you first read the Bible, it it has this new, shiny, awesome, like everything is good, everything is new, everything is great. Same way in marriage. You get married, everything's good, everything's great. And then you have your first big fight and I in my I actually had this talk with my wife last week. I think I didn't threaten her with it, but I was just talking to her about it because I just got done counseling some people for, uh, marriage stuff and I was like, yeah, you know, divorce should never be on the table, but the thoughts of like, especially like her, she has nothing to compare to, nothing to, to pin me up against the wall with, like you're acting just like him, like she doesn't have anything like that, but I do.

Speaker 1: 9:42

And so when we first got married, in my head I was thinking, because I got married to this good Christian girl that was like on fire for God, she was a Pentecostal girl, she, uh, she was like, she was like the gym, like she was, she's the, the, what the word talks about like a holy woman, uh, daily living to be sanctified, tries in every way to be a good wife, a good mother, a good woman, a good leader. And we had our first big fight and I'm like and this sounds dumb and immature, but because it was man, this is just going to be like the last one, like is this even going to last? When there was absolutely nothing wrong with my wife, but because I let my emotions drive the bus for a little bit, I got these thoughts in my head that had no business actually being there, and so I told her that last week and she said wait, what you did? I said, well, yeah, I mean, I'm just being honest, and it's not that I was like I'm going to divorce you. It was like man, if this is the same as what I just got out of, say, just a few years ago, if this is the same as I'm going to be treated like I have been, I'm not doing it. And but I kept that to myself because I realized pretty quickly that it wasn't really a her problem, it was more of a me problem and that I needed to chill out and walk slow and get my mind back right and get my focus back. So when I started focusing on her needs, her wants, her desires and being the man I need to be for her and stop worrying about what's going on with me, it changed. It shifted my perspective of my wife and the same.

Speaker 1: 11:33

When you go to a new church, like everything's shiny, everything's good, and then you get in the thick of things, maybe you have a first blow up or first argument with somebody in the church and you or the pastor does something you don't, or they play a song you don't agree with, or they never play a song you like, or whatever the case may be. Like in the beginning it's new, it's fresh, it's nice, and then it starts to kind of fade off. Well, the same with Christianity. When you come to Christ, like it's hard to stay in the word of God, it's hard to stay prayed up. It's hard to stay in the word of God. It's hard to stay prayed up, it's hard to stay fasting. And and it's not that there's something magical that can all of a sudden make it be exactly the way it's supposed to be or make you be exactly who you're supposed to be it takes effort on our part. Like that's.

Speaker 1: 12:21

I believe that's a part of what what is called sanctification, where you, every single day, we are choosing to be a man and woman that chases after God. Like we're laying our selfish ambition down, our selfish ways, our needs, wants and desires, we're laying them at the feet of Jesus and we're picking up what he desires for us. Now, this is hard. Okay, I'm, I have a business besides, um, being the pastor of a church. I have a little media company and sometimes I catch myself like just making decisions without actually including God in it, or just working and working and working and not stopping and saying, god, is this what you want me to do? All I do is ask God to bless my business, or ask God to bless our finances. And we pay tithes, we give generously, we do everything with our money that we're supposed to do.

Speaker 1: 13:21

But I feel like sometimes we have to play catch up because we didn't start at the right starting point. That makes sense, because we didn't include God. We actually had to start behind so that we can learn some lessons to get to where God actually wanted us to be. That makes sense. So we have to regroup, refocus, um the same with the church. You got to regroup, refocus. We're having a um uh leadership meeting here soon and we're going to be talking about what is our focus as leadership in the church. We're not just coming to do some things. We need to be intentional with what we are doing so that we can be successful in what we are doing.

Speaker 1: 13:56

And the same goes with your everyday life. Whether you're a Christian or believer or not, this still applies to you. This is just some scripture added in with some biblical context of uh, hopefully you can use it too if you don't believe, maybe it'll get you curious of the wisdom of the word of god, because I mean, you cannot go to any, any book of the bible and not get some wisdom. So the challenge of 15, five minutes of prayer, five minutes reading your word, five minutes of praising every single day, I I prefer to try to do it when I start off my day, so that I don't get to the end of my day and I'm so tired and exhausted from that day that I'm just like oh, I just want to lay my head down, because that tends to happen with me, like today, excuse me, the day I had to be. I had to drive an hour away and I had to be there at 630. So that means I had to get up at 430, shower and leave the house by 515 or 530.

Speaker 1: 14:47

That being said, even though I was a little tired, I made sure, like before, I even left my bathroom, brushing my teeth and all that stuff. Like I was playing the Bible, like I have it read to me, and it was from John, chapter 17. And I was just kind of, as I'm listening to the word, I'm also thinking it through in my head and kind of playing it out. So I started my day off that way and it helps my day. It doesn't necessarily change what's going to happen in my day, but it changes my perspective and it changes my vantage point to where I'm already prepared in here and in here, whatever happens out here. So that's very important, that I'm getting my focus before things start grabbing and trying to rob me of my focus. Because in in you say 15, challenge of five, five and five. Yes, there are small bites, but small bites count. So you maybe don't have this issue, but I do.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Let me look at my phone right quick, so I don't lie to you. I'm going to look at my emails, and this may not be all of them attached. Right now Tillman Photography doesn't count anymore because I started Tillman Media at Gmail, so that's tied to the other one, but that's one. And then the sounds that calm your mind. I stopped that because I was getting stupid, didn't have time for it, but that's another email. So let's just do active emails alone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. That's six active emails, but on my entire list that are right here.

Speaker 1: 16:32

I actually have and this includes ones that I'm not using anymore because I don't have the time one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, moly, and that's just email accounts. So I have emails from church, I have text messages from church people, then I have the church email. So I have pastorsteven at connectchurchlife, then I have connectchurchlongview at Gmail, which is like the parent to all the other emails, and then I have my media company website. I have my media company website, my podcast email and the websites, and then I have all the Facebooks, the groups, everything, the personal ones, the pages for all the church podcast media company, instagram, podcast media church, then TikTok. I only do one for that, that's for my, that's my personal one, but I put my the clips from the podcast on there. Then I have the account that sends out the podcast episodes to apple podcast and whatever all the other places are. That puts it all there. Then I go on to spotify once I upload it and then I also upload the video. So if you ever want to go to spotify, you can also watch the episodes on spotify now they have it where you can do video on there. And then I run a company, like actually going out and shooting.

Speaker 1: 17:56

So like there's all these things in church people, I will have one person talk to me in four different ways an email or a text, or a Facebook messenger or Instagram messenger. Like nobody ever does the same stream, it's like scattered. So, as you can imagine, my brain cells at the end of a day can be like text, because all different types of people, all different social medias, all different emails, all different text messages, phone calls, people in the hospital, people that having surgeries, people needing counseling, people just need to talk. My wife, every once in a while, like before I got on here, she needed to talk to me Like and then we're parents on top of that. So there's like so many things to do just in one day and it's like sometimes you just feel like you're playing catch up and then every single, almost every single night, there's something with the church after I get off work. So my free time to do this podcast.

Speaker 1: 18:56

The reason I stopped going live is because it was taking my time and it was like I had to schedule it. I had to do this. If I just jump in my office right, quick and record, I can just schedule it out over like a month or two and possibly get ahead of the game, and it's, it's worked a little better for me. That being said, everything and I'm sure you have the same, probably the same story, everything and I'm sure you have the same, probably the same story uh, you may have a regular job where, when you get off, you're off, uh, but but there's, everybody has something always needing to grab our attention and we live in a day of mass distraction.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Our days are filled with such distraction and oftentimes are when there's a um, a silence. It's almost like we get kind of like, if you take a, uh, it's, it's. I guess it would be addiction, not borderline addiction. But adults are like this too, just scrolling, like just that thumb flick, where you're just kind of seeing what everybody else is doing, just mind numbing, just not do anything, just flick, flick, just over and over, just that scroll. But think about this now, this is not a talk against social media, but it is. It is a talk, uh, for you to get your focus back, and I think social media robs us a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Um, this is actual stats on depression and anxiety before the widespread adoption of social media. So follow along with this. Before the widespread adoption make sure I didn't have anything on the screen for you. Before the widespread adoption of social media, the suicide rate among 10 to 24-year-olds was stable from 2000 to 2007. However, it then increased by 57% between 2007 and 2017. So, 10 years 57%, according to the data from the Centers of Disease Control. This timeline correlates with the rise of social media platforms, indicating a potential link between increased social media use and mental health issues among young adults. Now why has this jumped so rapidly in a small amount of time 57%? I believe it's because now we live in a day of comparison of who we are and who is out there.

Speaker 1: 21:29

So I need to. I need to post more, and this is one of my one of my biggest issues, cause I'm I'm a go getter as far as like let's's, let's get this done, let's do it. So I end up giving myself more stress with this podcast than I really should by thinking that's why I stopped the live stream, because I kept getting stressed out about when can I do it. Oh, I missed this week, oh, I missed next week. Like I've got to hurry and do this and it took the joy out of it, instead of just like turning on a camera and just let's do this, let's teach something, let's enjoy it, walk through it together, like the live stream part I made. I may still do some, but they stressed me out and I'm not, I'm too old for that kind of job.

Speaker 1: 22:07

So I'm having to change some things because I was willing enough, I was at least wise enough to look and realize that my stress level was rising because of that. That was the element, not the podcast itself, because I like doing it, I love it and you probably noticed I don't edit a lot of stuff anymore. Like I was paying somebody to edit down the five videos and the several different ones and blah, blah, blah, and I'm just like I'm pretty much posting it how it is, maybe taking some gaps out, but other than that, it is what it is and I'm just scheduling it out because I need that. So if I lose the passion and the drive to do it and actually enjoy it, why am I doing it? So now there's more opportunities for comparison, and comparison kills calling, so the stress level is rising, the purpose that people were feeling once they go out and work, they come home, they enjoy their life and their families, and now that's gone. Well, now everybody's comparing to everybody else and they've got to keep up with the Joneses and try to stay on top of the game so that they can look like they're doing something, and it has caused a great up, and this was in 2017. Who knows what it is today? Like, actually, I'm gonna look it up right now.

Speaker 1: 23:34

There are some adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media are twice as likely to experience poor mental health outcomes. There's no stats like right now popping up, but I mean, it's just saying what I already know, but not really any serious. Social media has been linked to poor sleep patterns in 2023, depression, anxiety. But it's that losing focus of what's actually important. Like you'll have people in the same room texting each other or like looking at each other's stuff on social media and they're not. They're, they're not. They're not even communicating in the same room. They're communicating through their phones, like looking down when they can look up.

Speaker 1: 24:14

There's a detachment from social understanding, social behavior, and I think it's damaging to our culture because this makes it, when we start comparing to real, to think that we're never going to measure up. And so it seems like we never measure up and we say like things like oh, I'm going to start exercising or I'll stop being distracted by social media no more unhealthy relationships, or I'll start eating better, I'll start trying to lose weight. But time and time again we find our solutions crumbling. Why? Because we're targeting behaviors without confronting the roots. So let's get an analogy If you had an ugly tree in your yard and wanted it gone, would cutting a single branch work? No Matter of fact, that's called pruning, and most of the time it'll grow back worse, you don't, or you? You would need to deal with the root system to truly remove the tree. In the same way, when we attempt to change by merely altering our actions, like cutting off a branch, we miss the root of the issue and the thoughts and the lies that fuels these behaviors continue to grow and make the wrong kind of fruit that is unhealthy to digest.

Speaker 1: 25:26

So let's look at some scripture. Look at Matthew, chapter four, verse four. Matthew chapter four, verse four. But Jesus told him no. The scriptures say people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God Jesus as a physical nourishment. Sorry Jesus. Just as physical nourishment sustains our bodies, spiritual nourishment from God's word sustains our very souls. This empowers us to overcome deceit through truth, to overcome deceitful thoughts through the truth. What is truth? God's word is the truth. So bottom line is this don't use culture or other people to measure who you are. Don't use culture or other people to measure who you are. Behavior modification will not make things get better, but an eternal heart transformation is what is required.

Speaker 1: 26:29

It's like it's crazy to think that simply stopping a behavior will lead to change. This is why people end up like backsliding or going back into old ways or walking away from God is because they come to God and they try to change the behavior, they don't actually get down to the root of the issue. I've seen people it's most of the time women, but I used to do it too that would. They would literally convince themselves that if they had a certain type of man or a or this different guy because it's in a different person that if they had that, their life would be fulfilled, they would be happy and they would enjoy things. And it ends up being like the same thing all over again. It's because they are trying to address the surface of the problem instead of getting to the root of it, which would be like loneliness All the things that they actually desire that could come from God they're trying to find in a person, in a relationship, and so that's damaging, because the root of the issue is deeper.

Speaker 1: 27:36

If there is bad fruit, you have to check the root. We need a two-fold strategy by removing the lies we talked about on the last episode at the root and replacing it with the truth. So where does the truth come from? Well, not from endless scrolling on the internet. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of good information out there, but there's so much information it's hard to tell. When you go out to the middle of the social media ocean, there's all kinds of beasts out there that you can't really tell what they are. Just because you're out there fishing don't mean you're going to catch something worth eating.

Speaker 1: 28:15

So let's look at this next scripture, psalm 119, 105. It says your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. Now, knowledge without application is like a lamp that is not lit. You can read this scripture and say, yeah, that's great, like I. Uh, okay, your lamp to my feet, that's. But if you're not in the word, then you don't have the lamp guiding your way.

Speaker 1: 28:44

God's word provides clarity and it provides the direction we need to be able to walk the path carefully and intentionally and intentionally. This brings us back to Colossians 3.16, emphasizing the richness of Christ's message in our lives, that it's not just enough for us to know God's word. We must let it sink in, we must let it be eternalized inside of us, because it's not enough to know God's word. We must allow it to take root, shaping our thoughts, our actions, our interactions with others. Knowledge without application is a lamp that has not been lit.

Speaker 1: 29:25

Let's go to 2 Timothy. Oh wait, sorry, one more. One more from the Psalm 119. I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. It's through internalizing scripture, realizing that you need scripture so that your path can be lit Well, that your, your steps can be sure. It is the word of God that lights that path. It's also the word of God that you need to hide in your heart. Why do you hide something? To protect it. Hide it in your heart so that you will not sin against God.

Speaker 1: 30:07

When you internalize scripture, you find strength, you can resist temptation and you can replace all the lies that the culture tries to tell us is truth, and you'll know. It's like this. When they try to see fake currency, they're not doing it by examining all fake currency, like a hundred dollar bill, for instance. What they do is they study and examine the $100 bill to where they know it inside and out. Every little thing about this dollar bill, this hundred dollar bill, they know, so they don't have to study all the bad. They know when it comes up and it's presented before them, they can compare and be able to tell the real from the fake. The same as with the word of God.

Speaker 1: 30:48

If you want to be able to tell when fake comes to your doorstep, you need to understand and know intimately the real and know intimately the real the Word of God. You can't take culture, learn things from culture and then cherry pick from the Scripture to make your life be okay. You're doing it backwards. You have to start. I've said it a hundred times you have to start from the Word. Understanding the role of Scripture in personal transformation is critical.

Speaker 1: 31:23

I've heard several people say this and I, you know, you get to a place in your walk or lonely out there and you're like man, I just don't hear from God anymore. Are you reading his word? Are you praying? And I don't mean mean. Here's the thing. Listen, we as christians are so stinking selfish and we could, we could have god speak to us and we wouldn't hear it if it didn't match up with what we wanted. For instance, let's say you're like man, I just don't. I just don't hear god on this. I just don't know if I'm supposed to do it, or I haven't heard a yes, or I haven't heard no, or whatever the case may be. And the sad thing is you probably wouldn't know his voice even if he was speaking, because you only come to him when you want something. There's no relationship, that's just facts. Like you don't, you don't want his voice any other time in your life until you need some sort of. Because we are so gifted in coming to God when we need something and we're like man, I just I don't know what he's saying. I don't know what he's saying.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Well, sometimes God withdraws himself so that his children become wise and become mature on their own, and they don't always need a hand out that they can actually make wise spiritual decisions because they are aligned with the will of God. But a lot of times, for the more immature people, it's like my son. It's not his fault I mean, it's his fault but he's also a teenager. I'm not excusing anything he does, but what I'm saying is this I was a teenager. Once adults do this, full blown, like up in age adults do this. They hear what they want and they make what they hear. They twist it up so easy to fit actually what they want to hear, in spite of whether it's actually what was said. And this aggravates me. My son will say you said to do this and what really upsets me is that he's technically calling me a liar and I'm not a liar and I will have to help him refocus on what is important and replay the conversation back to him. But what he would do is he would hear most of what I said but then pick and choose parts that fit what he wanted to do.

Speaker 1: 33:47

I'll give you a firsthand, real example of just last week. He was supposed to practice a song to play. He plays on the worship team every other weekend on the keyboard. There's a specific part on a slower song. It's more advanced, and I told him to go practice. He said okay. I went back and he was on his game. I said, tristan, go practice the song or you're going to be embarrassed when you can't do it. So he went and practiced.

Speaker 1: 34:12

I don't know why, but in his head he thought I told him to go practice the guitar part of that song. And he's telling me in front of my people at my church you told me to go practice the guitar. I said no, I didn't. Why would I tell you to go practice an instrument you're not going to play on Sunday? That doesn't even make logical sense. I had to walk him through very slowly and help him understand that I would not tell him to go practice something that he wasn't going to be playing. It doesn't add up. But in his head he heard something. He heard what he wanted, because he wanted to play the guitar and play around on the guitar, which is fine, but he had. He had something more important that was more priority, and he chose to do it wrong. And then we had to end up kicking the song because he wasn't ready.

Speaker 1: 34:59

But how many of us with God, we do the same thing, like we hear what we want and we then, when we are on the other side of it, well, I don't know what happened. I was just trying to hear from the Lord and I didn't hear anything. Well, it's because you're not really actually trying to listen. You're trying to rule the conversation and manipulate it into what you want it to be. And God, don't play that game. He'll let you get exactly what you're really wanting, so that you will learn he loves you that much. Sometimes we have to let our children get exactly what they're asking for, or to let it go the way that we know it shouldn't, because it's better if it doesn't, so that they'll learn the actual lesson and not keep going in this loop over and over and over and over again. So let's look at 2 Timothy, 3, 16 and 17.

Speaker 1: 35:52

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong. It teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. So the scripture is meant so that you can be prepared and actually be able to fight the battle properly.

Speaker 1: 36:20

Getting focused isn't about adding God's word to the list of chores every day, isn't about adding God's word to the list of chores every day. So what does focus mean? To adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly. It's hard to focus on God when we allow distractions to distance us from him, his word, and ends up leading us into disobedience and disassociation from God. The more we allow distance between us and God, the harder it is to regain focus on him and his voice will seem harder and harder to hear.

Speaker 1: 37:05

So my question to you is this like, if you really want to get closer to God, you really want to refocus on God and get your focus back on his word and and what he wants for your life. Maybe you've been following him for a while and you seem distant. Maybe you're new to Christ and you've never. You don't, you don't understand the closeness I'm talking about. This is on on every, every spectrum, like if you, you and God are, uh, brand new to each other or you've been serving him for 30 years. This is something that anybody can slip into, because it takes effort to keep the relationship alive. It takes effort to keep that closeness and that unity in the spirit to be aligned with God. It takes effort for us to do that.

Speaker 1: 37:54

And so what is it that maybe you've allowed to come between you and God? It could be a priority, like, maybe you're scheduling out of your time or maybe you don't schedule anything out. Sometimes you have to be, and it sounds dumb. You're like, well, I shouldn't have to put it on the calendar, but if you have to, you have to. Uh, do you sit there and get further and further from God and whine about not getting being close to him, but you won't actually do any steps to get closer to him? Maybe you need to put prayer time on the calendar. Maybe you need to set a reminder on your phone like, hey, at 1230 pm today or 9 pm tonight, set a reminder, pray, read your Bible. Or 7 am, pray, read your Bible. You know most people have a schedule. They got to get the kids to school, get them up, all that stuff, get that, find that gap somewhere.

Speaker 1: 38:51

And you may be like, well, I don't want to just shove God, you know, in a slot somewhere. Maybe that's how you have to start off and I think with all of my heart, I believe that God will honor the effort that we put in to trying to get closer to him. It doesn't mean everything's going to fall into place and be perfect and just everything's going to be awesome, but it does mean that you're trying and that's what God desires. God wants us to put forth in the effort. God is not the only person in this relationship. You have to do something, I have to do something. He has done so much. If he never does another thing, he's done more than enough.

Speaker 1: 39:29

So what is it between you and God that has robbed you of your focus? Whether it's maybe you need to fast Like me, personally, I fast food once a week, not fast food, I fast eating once a week. Maybe if social media or emails or whatever, like if you run a business, it's hard to do that with emails, I get that, but maybe social media, maybe your spouse, help you out and say hey, listen, I know I got to do this for my business, but I need you to take care of it for this day, because I need to purge myself of the negativity, purge myself from the. You know it's all out there. You can find it anywhere. But figure out what is keeping you from God, and this is going to sound. It's going to sound terrible. Children or spouses can do that.

Speaker 1: 40:21

It's important to pray with your spouse. We pray as a family every night. I pray with Tristan when I take him to school every morning and when my wife picks him up from school she reads the Bible with him on the way back to the house, about a 10-minute ride. But sometimes your family you need to have separation from your family so that you can really focus on God. Maybe you need to go and sit in your car for 10 minutes every day at some point when there's a gap, when there's a lull, husbands help your wives out. Okay, it's not the responsibility all the time to take care of everything. Say listen, go sit in the car, decompress for a second. Whatever you got to do, it'll be quiet out there. Just go sit. You know whatever it takes, because when you have a clarity of mind, you'll have a peace of soul and you'll be able to problem solve better. You'll be able to have relationships that are stronger. You'll be able to work more efficiently.

Speaker 1: 41:16

When you have a plan, don't always be on the back end of it trying to do damage control, because that'll wear you out, trust me. Try to have a plan before the distraction, a plan before the destruction. Don't wait until your world's falling apart to then try to turn to God. Turn to God now, and then, when all the other stuff comes, you and God will be on the same page and you'll know what to do. And even if you don't know what to do because life can change like that you'll have peace in your heart because you trust in Him, that he knows what he's doing, and the Bible says that all things good, bad and ugly work together for the good of those that love Him. So if you love Him, cling to Him, trust Him, focus on him, lean on him, because I promise you his plan is better than any plan you and I can put together. I love you, I'm praying for you and I hope you have a great rest of your week.